Lemaire Multitopstitch Taekwondo Trousers

A taekwondo trouser is a designed object with a very narrow brief: it has to permit a full-height kick, it has to stay closed while doing so, and it has to survive being gripped and pulled. The answers are consistent across every dobok ever made. The rise is deep and the crotch is dropped, so the leg can travel through its whole range without the seat pulling; the leg is wide and straight so nothing binds at the knee; the waist is drawn rather than fastened, so it moves with the body instead of holding a fixed circumference; and the stress points are reinforced with stitching rather than with hardware, because hardware injures people. Lemaire has taken that garment and made the reinforcement the surface. Multitopstitch means rows of visible stitching worked across the trouser, which in a martial arts garment would be structural and here is both structural and the entire visual language of the piece. There is no print, no hardware, and no contrast; the only thing to look at is line after line of thread catching light slightly differently from the cloth around it. In ash black, a soft dark that is not quite black, the stitching reads as texture rather than as decoration.

Garments built for movement almost always fit better than garments built for looks, and this is one of the few that keeps the construction honest instead of stylising it. The topstitching is the finish and the structure at the same time.

Taking a functional garment from outside the usual references and building it properly, rather than printing its silhouette onto something else, is a very Lemaire operation.

100% cotton, made in Romania, in ash black. Multitopstitch detailing throughout, in a relaxed cut.

Cut relaxed, with the deep rise and generous leg the reference implies, so it hangs from the waist and does not sit on the hip. This is a trouser with a lot of room through the seat and thigh by design. We do not hold measurements, and there is no Lemaire size chart on this site.

A wide, deep-rise trouser is the shape, so it wants a close top and a flat shoe, and it does not want a second volume above it. Ash black is softer than a true black and sits well with brown, grey, and denim.

Cotton washes easily but topstitching is where a garment distorts, since dense rows of thread shrink at a different rate from the cloth they are worked into. Wash cool, dry gently, and press from the reverse so the stitching is not flattened. Our fabric care guide has a section on cotton.

The Maxi Barrel Workwear Pant and the Twisted Workwear Pants come from the same workwear line of thinking, and the Utility Jacket is the jacket that goes with them. Everything we carry from Lemaire is listed together.