Glossary of Sewing Terms with Pictures: What are capri pants exactly? #FashionWise #MakeYourOwnClothes

Capri pants are trousers that fall between the knee and the ankle. Images shown include (clockwise from the top), a group of mannequins shown from the knee down, sporting various lengths of capris that fall between the knee and the ankle using various fabrics, including camouflage style with drawstrings at the hem, denims, and cotton fabrics; a vintage fashion doll sporting traditional 1950’s style pedal pushers; a photo of a woman in tight-fitting gingham ankle pants and a pair of wedge shoes (showing only her legs at a seated position); a diagram of a woman’s naked leg with brackets showing the hem area which falls between the bottom of the knee and the top of the ankle bone; a graphic of pajama pants with an elastic waist that are capri length; a graphic of a pair of khakis with a rolled hem, fly front, and pockets, that are shown as slightly longer than a pair of Bermuda shorts. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

DEFINITION: trousers that fall between the knee and the ankle.

This is my own definition. Of course you can google this term to find other definitions as well. Here’s a link to Webster’s definition, and here’s a link to the Cambridge English Dictionary definition.

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The image shows a 1970s vintage Crissy doll from Ideal Toy Corporation wearing handmade doll clothes on the right side of a text box. The doll is dressed in a yellow square-neck shirt with shoulder-length sleeves that end in lace. The bottom of her shirt is also trimmed in lace. Beneath the lace, we see the elastic waist of her denim capri pants. She wears denim sneakers that match. The text box contains a graphic image of a sewing machine that says "Let's sew" and beneath this the phrase is completed with... ["Let's sew] ... a pair of capris for Crissy." At the bottom of the combined text box and photograph, the URL ChellyWood.com is provided. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

My own definition is much broader, I think, than the Webster’s and Cambridge dictionary definitions, which both point to a narrow fit for a capri pant. However, English is an ever-changing language, and with wider leg pants in fashion right now, I’m seeing wider leg short trousers labeled as “capris” on various fashion websites for 2026.

For example, this link to Amazon displays wide-leg short pants that are described as “Capri Palazzo Pants,” “Wide Leg Carpi Yoga Sweat Pants,” and even “Capri Jeans.” So they seem to fall in a variety of lengths, styles, fabrics, and fits. There’s even a smattering of both formal designs and casual ones.

The feature they all seem to have in common, is the length. They fall between the knee and the ankle. That’s what I surmised as I came up with my definition, after visiting a number of different websites and consulting books on fashion history.

Click on the link in the caption for all the patterns and tutorial videos you'll need to make this outfit for your Tammy doll. The image shows a Tammy Doll (made by Ideal Toy Corp. in the 1960s) wearing handmade gingham capris and a cotton short-sleeved shirt. Her straw hat adds character to the ensemble, as do her white sneakers, but the pattern and tutorials will only be for making the capri pants and shirt. To find these free PDF sewing patterns, please go to ChellyWood.com (shown as a watermark on the image). — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

My mom’s generation called them “pedal pushers,” I suppose because girls wore this type of garment when riding a bike. These were strictly a narrow version of the cropped pant, fitting relatively close to the leg. Perhaps that’s why the old-school dictionaries stick to this narrow-leg pant description.

I’m guessing some of you are aware that these fashionable short pants get their name from the island of Capri, in Greece. If you’d like to learn more about that history, I recommend reading this blog post on the El Pais website. The article’s author, Elena Muñoz, cites Hollywood darlings like Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, and Natalie Wood as helping build public awareness of these comfy and cool summer staples for a woman’s wardrobe.

On one website (which will remain nameless), the movie Roman Holiday, in which Audrey Hepburn got her start, is referred to as the catalyst for the popularity of capris. It was released in 1953. But I don’t think she wears capri pants in that movie at all.

The image shows a Made-to-Move Barbie dressed like Audrey Hepburn from the early 1960's. She wears a black turtleneck with black capri pants and black plastic flats. She's seated on a tiny 1:6 scale folding chair. One arm is slung over the back of the chair, and the other arm is extended for balance. She is lifting one of her feet high into the air in front of her, while the other leg is bent with her toes just resting on a concrete floor. The wall behind her is white, creating a sharp contrast to the black clothing and silver chair. If you'd like to make this outfit, click on the link provided in the caption. You'll be taken to a page where you'll be able to download and print all the free PDF sewing patterns and watch all the free tutorial videos you'll need to make this outfit. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

However, I own a book called Western World Costume, by Carolyn G. Bradley, and it was published in 1954. In this book, various lengths and styles of capris are labeled as “Cabin Boy Breeches,” “Pedal Pushers,” “Jester Pants,” “Toreador Pants,” and “Goucho Pants.”

Not once do they seem to mention capris, which makes me think this term didn’t actually become popular until much later than the release of Roman Holiday. But, of course, Western World Costume is only one resource from the era when the term “capri” supposedly came into play. There could be other resources from that period, which do mention capris; I’m just not aware of them.

Google AI claims the term “capri” was popularized by another Hepburn movie called Sabrina. That could be true, but it doesn’t explain why my mother and her sisters always called them “pedal pushers,” not “capri pants.”

Either way, the term seems to be continuing to take form, even in our own time.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: How far back do you think the term “capri” goes? Do you own any patterns that use the word “capri,” and if so, what year(s) are those patterns from? Feel free to share all your thoughts and memories on the topic of “capris” in the comments section below.

Please come back to this blog post at the end of next week, so you can see what comments other people left!

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