Open drawers are undergarments where the backs and front of the legs are not joined together; they were split in the middle to make it easier to urinate.[1] As chemises decreased in length, open drawers stopped being used.[2] In the late 19th century, there was debate about women wearing open or closed drawers.
^Canter Cremers-van der Does, Eline (1980). The agony of fashion. p. 90. open drawers, split in the middle in order to enable, for example, the peasant in the field to urinate
^Carter, Alison J (1992). Underwear, the fashion history. p. 87. By 1900, the chemise was at calf- rather than knee length as previously; by 1914, it was well above the knee, revealing the drawers. There seems to have been a relationship between the length of the chemise and the height of the opening in open drawers; when this closed the chemise did not need to be so long
