Tobi trousers

Tobi trousers or tobi pants (Japanese: 鳶ズボン) are a type of baggy pants used as a common uniform of tobi shokunin (鳶職（とびしょく）), construction workers in Japan who work on high places (such as scaffolding and skyscrapers).^[1] The pants are baggy to a point below the knees, abruptly narrowing at the calves so as to be put into the footwear: high boots or jika-tabi (tabi-style boots).^[2]

Two workers wearing tobi pants and jika-tabi boots

According to a spokesperson for Toraichi, a major manufacturer of worker's clothes of this style, the style was developed from knickerbockers which were part of Japanese military uniform during World War II. The regular knickerbocker-style pants are called "nikka zubon" ("zubon" meaning "trousers" and "nikka" or "nikka-bokka", a gairaigo transformation of the word "knickerbockers"). The excessively widened ones are called chocho zubon.^[3] This style has also entered popular fashion,^[2] as evidenced by the emergence of toramani ("Toraichi maniacs"), die-hard fans of Toraichi trousers.^[1]