Flared trousers (flared trousers from the knee) are long pants that were widespread down from the knee, which were in fashion in the 1970s . In the USSR they were called "bell trousers."
History
Flared pants appeared in the navy. Even in the days of the sailing fleet, sailors wore pants of a special cut. Pants extended downward from the hip. This form was called "cloche", which from French meant a bell, a trumpet, and in Russian it sounded like a flare. At sea trousers there used to be a fastener - a lapel. There was a flap valve in front of the trousers, and together with wide trouser-legs such a model of trousers made it possible for a sailor who fell into the water to quickly get rid of his clothes and float up.
When the two side clasps were unfastened, then it was worthwhile to chat with your feet in the water, as due to the wide flares, the trousers themselves slipped off without touching the boot. Previously, shoes were not equipped with laces, but with rubber inserts. Coming to the shore, sailors often sewed pieces of lead into the ends of their legs, swaying in the wind, they created the image of a “storm flare”. But the bosses punished such "mods" for damage to their uniforms.
Over time, the need for a flare has disappeared. In the Russian pre-revolutionary fleet, sailor and officer trousers made of black wool or cloth were of a straight cut, of moderate width, without the slightest hint of flare. From 1909 to 1910, due to the fashion that arose in civilian men's clothing, naval officers, mainly young people, began to wear flared pants. True, they were followed only by schools, and the pupils of the marine corps. It was strictly forbidden for sailors to alter government trousers and wear flared trousers. All the more forcefully, from the first months of the February Revolution , a massive alteration of sailor trousers began on a cut with a bell at the bottom, which sometimes acquired ridiculous, caricatured sizes.
At the end of the 1960s, flare entered youth fashion, and in the 1970s it entered fashion again as an element of disco style .