knee breeches

Origin of knee breeches

First recorded in 1825–35

There were men dressed in colonial garb complete with knee-breeches and powdered wigs.

New York’s Century-Old Time Capsule Is a Dud |Justin Jones |October 8, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
But my father powdered his head, and kept to his knee-breeches to the last; so did all elderly gentlemen, when I was a boy.

Tracks of a Rolling Stone |Henry J. Coke
He should not have omitted the matter of the exchange of the cardinal's knee-breeches for the valet's pantaloons.

Catholic World, Vol. XI, April 1870-September 1870 |Various
As for stockings, they are about as useful to a young Tagalo girl, as knee-breeches to a Scotch-highlander.

Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat |Edmund Roberts

The man I remember had gray clothes and knee-breeches and the woman a gray dress, and my nurse had said contemptuously, “towrows.”

Reveries over Childhood and Youth |William Butler Yeats
Lace frills of costly Point edged the knee-breeches, lace cravats were worn and deep falling cuffs.

Chats on Old Lace and Needlework |Emily Leigh Lowes