Four fall pant styles to carry you into winter

For men and women! Plus a little pant history, a book rec, a ring tour, and my new favorite weather resistant pants

Hello readers!

Thank you so much for all the love this community has shown me, and all the love that you continue to show to each other. I adore every single thing about this project, and the amazing people it’s connected me to.

I’m writing to you from home! After a month away for work trips, family trips, in between trips waiting in limbo, I’m finally back home in Telluride, just catching the fall leaves. I’m so happy to be back to routine and my online pilates classes. I can’t wait to cook new fall dinner recipes at home and sit at my desk writing and researching for TOGS. And of course, spending time outside with Squid and Cody.

Squid is a dog, Cody is a boy

The letter du jour is a roundup of 4 pant silhouettes that I’m wearing for fall that will also carry me into the winter.

First of all, how much do we love pants?! Interesting pants are really the sweet spot for me. The silhouette and material of your pants can direct the feel of your outfit so significantly. And with baggy, barrel, and unisex styles trending, the pant world has never been broader and more explorable.

Skrousers are also having a moment again-

and, Instagram fit check girls (I say this as one of you), remember this style has been around since women started wearing pants as an act of rebellion.

Oh great heavens! circa 1918 United Kingdom

I would be remiss to not give a nod of great thanks to the women of yesteryear who spent time in the slammer for bravely donning a trouser.

Above is Helen Hulick, who in November 1938, was brought to court to testify against two men who had burgled her building. Instead the judge held her in contempt of court for refusing to wear a dress.

“Listen, I’ve worn slacks since I was 15,” she said. “I don’t own a dress except a formal. If he wants me to appear in a formal gown that’s okay with me. I’ll come back in slacks and if he puts me in jail I hope it will help to free women forever of anti-slackism.” - Helen Hulick

And here is one of my favorite photos of actress Marlene Dietrich, causing a heck of a stir for wearing pants in 1933.

She is photographed at a train station after a European holiday where she brought “luggage containing twenty-five suits of male clothes, dozens of men’s shirts, neckties and sock.” People found equal uproar in her daughter also wearing a suit-

Like mother, like daughter!

And Amelia Bloomer, activist and reformer who campaigned for temperance and women’s rights movements - and the namesake behind the style. She would show up to meetings in the 1850’s in what were called “Turkish Trousers” or pantaloons under skirts. They eventually adopted the term bloomers. Thanks Amelia!

It really wasn’t long ago that women were jailed for blending function and fashion by wearing pants. Our early TOGS trailblazers. I think of all of our grandmothers and great grandmothers and how different the world was for them. And now here we are, their descendants, able dress freely and continue to explore fashion as means of expression.

I think I’ll channel Marlene Dietrich’s energy when I’m strutting along in pants this week.

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First up in our fall pants roundup-

The Trouser:

There are a million sub-categories of the trouser, but I’m lumping them all together here. Right now, I’m drawn to a baggier silhouette, pooling up just so around the foot. Or cropped (but not kick flared) wide leg shapes. Exaggerated pleats, and heavy duty materials. Interesting wrap elements and herringbone/plaid fabrics. Here are two trousers I have in rotation, styled in different ways.