Thread by @RowennaM

A follow up for yesterday's thread:

Why Geralt of Rivia's Pants as Portrayed by Netflix are an Exercise in Impossibility from a Historical Perspective

There will be embarrassing tailoring discussions. You've been warned.

https://twitter.com/RowennaM/status/1471139858391478285

So! One thing I mentioned already--historically, fabrics don't have a ton of stretch. You can get some give in non-synthetic fabrics by cutting on the bias and using knits. Neither of these will give you the stretch and give of, say, modern yoga pants.

And problems exist with either of these--cutting on the bias will lead to sagginess you don't want as it won't "bounce back" and, well. Most places, historically, did not embrace knitted pants. (Hard to produce, a touch drafty.)

Yet here we have Geralt, clad in remarkably tight pants for, I presume, Reasons.

The important thing to note here:

Every angle is tightly fitted. The front. The legs. The back. Ahem. The back is VERY tightly fitted.

And here enters the impossibility. Assuming fabrics available to the technology level of this fantasy world, they will not stretch. So where will they give when Geralt moves? First time he roundhouses a monster, Splitsville.

For answers, let's look to a historical time period that also enjoyed its tight pants. Legs were The Thing in the 18th century.

Note the smooth line of the fabric along the legs. The ideal is to see the curve of the thighs here, people.

Legs were on display in fashionable 18th century dress. (These images are from period fashion plates, the Galeries des Modes).

And clearly this guy can move.

Party on, friend.

Ok, you say, so maybe these images are idealized, or maybe fellows could mince about court with little risk of splitting their drawers. They didn't *need* extensive movement in their clothes, so could have tight pants risk-free.

Fair. So let's look to fellows who needed freedom of movement in their clothing: Soldiers.

Sketches of soldiers show us practically painted-on trousers and breeches.

I'm using pictures from a living history group, His Majesty's 40th Foot / 2nd Battalion Light Infantry (the"Bloodhounds") . Learn more about them here: facebook.com/40thBloodhound…

Please note: the pants are quite slim fitting. They are made of linen, a fabric that will not give you legging-like stretch despite the nearly legging-like fit in some cases.

The legs are fitted very close, but here's the catch, friends--let's take a look at the back.

In order to achieve those tightly fitted legs, there has to be some give somewhere in the tailoring. In 18th century trousers, look no further than the butt.

And giving that extra fabric in the rear means an interesting phenomenon in the inseam of the pants. In order to avoid embarrassing modern living historians with close examinations of their junk, let's look at our Pink Fellow again.

You'll notice some...bunching. In real life, this ends up basically looking like a weird male camel toe.

THERE. I said it.

Long story short, in order to achieve an aesthetic ideal of tightly fitted pants, historically, something else has to give, and it's the aesthetic of tight buns and a non-bunchy-crotch.

And I don't blame the Witcher production team for embracing a more modern aesthetic here. Admittedly, I'm one of a very small handful of the target audience that would enjoy watching Henry Cavill just as much wearing a pair of saggybutt breeches.

Mostly because I wouldn't be wincing every time Geralt takes a larger than average step, waiting for the integrity of the seams to give out.