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Elegant style icon wardrobe essentials: Audrey Hepburn in capri pants

According to Wikipedia, capri pants (also known as three-quarter pants, capris, cropped pants, man-pris, clam-diggers, flood pants, jams, highwaters, or toreador pants) are pants that are longer than shorts but shorter than full-length trousers. The term can refer generally to any cropped, slim-fitting pants, or specifically to pants that end at the ankle bone.

German fashion designer Sonja de Lennart introduced capri pants in 1948. She and English couturier Bunny Roger popularized them. The name comes from the Italian island of Capri, where the pants rose to popularity in the late 1950s and early '60s. British actress Audrey Hepburn was among the first movie stars to wear capris, and the pants quickly became synonymous with her classic style.

Capri pants have since become a style staple for icons from Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly to ex-American First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, French actress Brigitte Bardot, and American actress Marilyn Monroe. But no one is more closely associated with capri pants than Audrey Hepburn. She is so iconically connected to the look that capri pants could easily be renamed Audrey pants.