Romford, in Essex, grew up during the Middle Ages as a market town and stop to the great metropolis. It also quickly earned a reputation from the 15th Century on as a centre of leather industry and tanning. By the 18th Century, Romford was synonymous with leather breeches (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol7/pp72-76).
Leather breeches were no doubt a bit scandalous and thus often referred by the term “inexpressibles”. Sir John Sinclair, pontificating in The Code of Health and Longevity (1818) had this to say:
Reminds me a bit of the current fashion of skinny jeans.
