The return of the Oxford trouser

The historicity is an intrinsic element of Galleria Cavour thanks to its location in the ancient commercial heart of Bologna, thanks to its illustrious arcades of centuries-old memory and the adjacent Palazzo Vassè Pietramellara which, rebuilt in the 16th century, still embellishes the noble ceilings of some of our most prestigious stores.

History, however, also passes through fashion: the shop windows that we all admire every day are, in fact, the mirror of the society and customs of the time. It would be enough to observe them to study generational changes, understand them and recount the historical cycles and recycles that often describe eras better than many school books.

In short, fashion is a photograph of time. Next season, for example, will see the return of a style that harks back to the male trends of the early twentieth century: Oxford pants. Characterized by wide and soft lines, this is the name of the wide pants that from the Twenties began to become omnipresent in the wardrobe of the post-Victorian man.

Thanks to a more casual and comfortable approach, they immediately represented a rejection of the strict sartorial rules of the time and owe their name to the English town from which this small revolution in costume started. Even today, the Oxford trouser, which later also conquered the female wardrobe, remains the emblem of a practical style but at the same time elegant and chic thanks to the triumph of wide and clean lines.

Like many fashions born in the wake of change, the Oxford pants were greeted with disappointment by the older generations who considered them a sign of effeminacy and moral decay. Perhaps for this reason their success on the new generations of the time was dazzling. They marked a turning point in the way of dressing of the time so that even today they are still the protagonists of the new twenties. Studying the changes of the time through fashion: this too is history.