To watch University of Fashion’s lesson preview click: Drafting a Women’s Bell Bottom Pant (Image credit: UniversityofFashion.com)

When I think of bell bottoms, I think of the 60s & early 70s, hippies and Cher. Distinguishing themselves from their close relative, flared pants, bell bottoms widen dramatically at the knee, creating a bell-like shape at the bottom. 

Cher, of Sonny & Cher (circa 1960s), wearing striped bell bottom pants. (Image credit: Wix.com)

History of Bell Bottoms

Cracker Jack’s mascots Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo (drawn by Andrew Loomis) were introduced in 1916 and helped popularize bell bottoms. (Pinterest.com)

Bell-bottoms have long been synonymous with sailors in the U.S. Navy, in fact, did you know that their service dress uniforms are still called “cracker jacks”, based off of the 1916 mascot of the caramel-colored popcorn called Cracker Jacks?

Other references to bell bottoms are Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly dancing and singing in the 1945 musical Anchors Aweigh. During World War II, songwriter Moe Jaffe even reworked the lyrics of a bawdy 19th-century English sea shanty into “Bell Bottom Trousers,” a song about a woman’s love for her sailor, who wore “bell bottom trousers, coat of navy blue.”

1970s Flower Power bell bottom pants (Badinka.com)

Bell bottoms went right from the 60s hippies right into the disco 70s. There seemed no limit as to how wide the bell would go, especially when princess seams were added to the pant legs.  The last significant resurgence of bell bottom pants occurred during the Spring/Summer 2023 fashion season, as evidenced by their prominent presence on the runways of New York Fashion Week (NYFW) in September 2022. Overall, bell bottoms have cycled in and out of fashion over the decades, but their latest return to prominence reflects a broader trend that embraces retro styles, particularly influenced by the Y2K revival that began around 2019. And to quote a 60s Sonny & Cher song, The Beat Goes On.