The term can refer to either split skirts, historical men's breeches, or women's underpants; this is an example of fashion-industry words taken from designs across history, languages and cultures, then being used to describe different garments, often creating confusion among historians and readers.

In English-speaking history culottes were originally the knee-breeches commonly worn by gentlemen of the European upper-classes from the late Middle Ages or Renaissance through the early 19th century.

[2] In the United States, only the first five presidents, from George Washington (1732-1799) through James Monroe (1758-1831), wore culottes according to the style of the late 18th century.

[3][4] John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) wore long trousers instead of knee breeches at his inaugural ceremony in 1825, thus becoming the first president to have made the change of dress.

Eighteenth and nineteenth-century European women introduced culottes cut with a pattern looking like long hakama, hiding their legs while riding horses.

Culottes were abandoned among non-Hassidim in the mid-1900s[5] to early 20th century (due to upheavals in traditional Jewish life in those times), but ended up staying customary only among Hassidim, who continue to wear them today.

[6] In modern English, the use of the word culottes can mean a close fitting pair of pants ending at the knees,[7] such as Lady Diana Spencer popularised during the early 1980s.