#trousers

Checkered pants man ready to steal your wife, 1847.(Paris Musées collection)

People were dressing up more, and faster, but fashion commentators asked whether they were really dressing better. In order to draw customers from the mixed and lower classes, retail clothiers stressed fashion trends and exaggerated details. “Novelty” materials for vests and pants produced showy effects at low cost. In January 1844, La Fashion railed against “all those patterned vests that look like wall paper.” […]

In addition to such topical patterns—which certainly enabled men to stand out in a crowd—there was an 1840s vogue for striped and checked pants.

— Farid Chenoune, A History of Men’s Fashion

Although fashion plates showing 1840s men in striped and checked pants definitely exist, they tend to have a more subdued, dare I say tasteful appearance. It’s caricature artists who have the most fun with it (and ridicule the loudest pattens).

FromThe Natural History of the Gent, 1847. (full text online)

Fashion plate detail, circa 1845 (Victoria & Albert Museum). These gentlemen are in the Age of Steam with their railroadtrousers:

Railroad trousers (M) Period: ca. 1837–1850. The name given to trousers with vertical stripes, and soon applied also to trousers with horizontal and vertical stripes.

— Valerie Cumming, The Dictionary of Fashion History