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A skirt is a tube- or cone-shaped garment which hangs from the waist and covers all or part of the legs. Unlike trousers, a skirt is "unbifurcated" — that is, not divided into separate legs. A dress (also frock, gown) is a garment consisting of a skirt with an attached bodice or with a matching bodice giving the effect of a one-piece garment.
In Western culture, skirts and dresses are usually considered women's clothing. However, there are exceptions. The kilt is considered a traditional men's garment in Scotland, and is growing in fashion throughout the world. Additionally, garments which are identified as skirts are being proposed as men's clothing by some of the trendier fashion houses such as Jean-Paul Gaultier. Regardless of the Western world's fashion trends, approximately a third of the world's male population continue to wear unbifurcated garements as a routine matter of course.
At its simplest, a skirt can be a draped garment made out of a single piece of material (such as sarongs or pareos), but most skirts are fitted to the body at the waist and fuller below, with the fullness introduced by means of darts, gores, pleats, or panels. Modern skirts and dresses are usually made of light to mid-weight fabrics, such as denim, jersey, worsted, or poplin. Skirts and dresses of thin or clingy fabrics are worn with slips to make the material of the skirt drape better and for modesty.
The hemline of skirts and dresses can be as high as the upper thigh or as low as the ground, depending on the whims of fashion and the modesty or personal taste of the wearer.
Some medieval upper-class women wore skirts over 3 metres in diameter at the bottom. At the other extreme, the miniskirts of the 1960s were minimal garments that may barely cover the underwear when seated.
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Dresses and skirts in the 19th century
During the nineteenth century, the cut of women's dresses in western culture varied more widely than in any other century. Waistlines started just below the bust (the Empire silhouette) and gradually sank to the natural waist. Skirts started fairly narrow and
increased dramatically to the hoopskirt and crinoline-supported styles of the 1860s; then fullness was draped and drawn to the back by means of bustles. Dresses were generally one-piece garments from 1800 through the 1840s; after that it became common for a dress to be made as a separate skirt and bodice, and many dresses had a "day" bodice with a high neckline and long sleeves, and an "evening" bodice with a low neckline (decollete) and very short sleeves.
Throughout this period, the length of fashionable dresses varied only slightly, between ankle-length and floor-sweeping.
See also History of Western fashion: 1795-1820, 1820s, 1830s-40s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s
Victorian fashion, Artistic Dress movement, Victorian dress reform.
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Dresses and skirts in the 20th and 21st centuries
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Beginning around 1915, hemlines for daytime dresses left the floor for good. For the next fifty years, fashionable skirts became short (1920s), then long (1930s), then shorter (the War Years with their restrictions on fabric), then long (the New Look), then shortest of all during the 1960s, when skirts became as short as possible while avoiding exposure of underwear, which is considered taboo.
Since the 1970s and the rise of pants as an option for all but the most formal of occasions, no one skirt length has dominated fashion for long, with short and ankle-length styles often appearing side-by-side in fashion magazines and catalogs.
Styles of dresses and skirts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries include:
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Dresses
Basic shapes:
Shirtwaist, a dress with a bodice (waist) like a tailored shirt and an attached straight or full skirt
Sheath, a fitted, often sleeveless dress, sometimes without a waistseam (1960s)
Shift, a straight dress with no waist shaping or seam (1960s)
Sundress, a sleeveless dress of any shape, with a low neckline in a lightweight fabric, for summer wear
Tent, a dress flared from above the bust, sometimes with a yoke (1960s)
Fads and fashions:
Tea gown, a frothy, feminine semiformal dress
Dinner dress, a semiformal dress worn when fashionable people "dressed for dinner" (men in tuxedos or dinner jackets, even at home)
Ball gown, a long dress with a full, sweeping, or trained skirt for dancing
Kitty Foyle, a dark-colored dress with contrasting (usually white) collar and cuffs (1940s, after a dress worn by Ginger Rogers in the movie of the same name)
Cocktail dress, a semiformal party dress of the current street length (1950s and sporadically popular since)
Granny gown, an ankle-length, often ruffled, day dress of printed calico, cut like a Victorian nightgown, popularized by designer Laura Ashley (late 1960s-1970s)
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Skirts
Basic shapes:
Straight skirt, a tailored skirt hanging straight from the hips and fitted from the waist to the hips by means of darts or a yoke; may have a kick-pleat for ease of walking
Full skirt, a skirt with fullness gathered into the waistband
A-line skirt, a skirt with a slight flare, roughly in the shape of a capital letter A
Pleated skirt, a skirt with fullness reduced to fit the waist by means of regular pleats ('plaits') or folds, which can be stitched flat to hip-level or free-hanging
Circle skirt, a skirt cut in sections to make one or more circles with a hole for the waist, so the skirt is very full but hangs smoothly from the waist without darts, pleats, or gathers
A Divided Skirt looks like a skirt, but is divided into two legs, much like a loose-fitting pair of trousers or long shorts
Fads and fashions:
Hobble skirt, a fashion of the early 20th century, with fullness at the hips narrowing to the ankles
Dirndl, a skirt made of a straight length of fabric gathered at the waist
Prairie skirt, a flared skirt with one or more flounces or tiers (1970s and on)
Kilt-skirt, a wrap-around skirt with overlapping aprons in front and pleated around the back. Though traditionally designed as women's wear, it is fashioned to mimic somewhat closely the general appearance of a (man's) kilt, including the usage of a plaid pattern more or less closely resembling those of recognized tartan patterns of Scotland.
Miniskirt, a thigh-length skirt, and micromini, an extremely short version (1960s)
Broomstick skirt, a skirt with many crumpled pleats formed by compressing and twisting the garment while wet (1980s and on)
Sarong, a square of fabric wrapped around the body and tied on one hip to make a skirt; worn as a skirt or as a cover-up over a bathing suit in tropical climates.
Trouser skirt, a straight skirt with the part above the hips tailored like men's trousers, with belt loops, pockets, and fly front
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How skirts and dresses are worn today
In Europe and America skirts and dresses can be worn by females of all ages as an alternative to pants. A skirt may be worn as part of a suit. Skirts or dresses are the garments of choice for many women in formal situations, such as weddings and geopolitical summits. In cold climates, girls and women may wear trousers, hosiery, or long underwear for warmth and/or modesty, with a skirt or dress on top to mark their femininity or other reasons (for instance, since they happen to be "in-fashion" at the time). In traditional societies, such as in many countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central and South America, it is considered inappropriate for girls and women to wear trousers rather than a skirt or dress.
Potential disadvantages of skirts and dresses include them being either too long or cumbersome for the performance of some physical activities such as climbing ladders, and that their use can run contrary to the individual or wider public sense of modesty and decency, especially given their potential to intentionally or accidentally expose the wearer's underwear.
Dresses however can be cooler and less confining than many trouser styles, and they are still very popular for special occasions such as proms or weddings.
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Men in skirts, etc.
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Aside from kilts, which have traditionally been worn by men throughout the British Isles and to a lesser extent by Scottish, Irish, and Welsh descendants in the United States and elsewhere, skirts, dresses, and similar garments are still considered primarily women's clothing in the Western world and the wearing of them by men in these areas is generally considered cross-dressing. Throughout the rest of the world, however, male unbifurcated garments are worn as a routine matter. Notable exceptions in the Western World include skirts specifically made for men, usually worn during outdoor activities or while running. In many other countries and regions the wearing of these garments by men is normal or accepted as traditional costume.
Male skirts include:
The sarong, a wrap skirt worn by both men and women throughout Southeast Asia and many islands in the Pacific ocean. Such skirts are called lungi in South Asia, tupenu in Tonga, kain in Malaysia (with ends sewn together), longyi in Burma, and pāreu in Tahiti.
The foustanella, is worn by men in Greece and the Balkans. By the mid-20th Century, it was relegated to period/costume/traditional wear.
Male dresses or robes include:
A long-sleeved, ankle-length loose robe worn in the Middle East and Africa -- often called a kaftan or djellaba. In Arabia it is called a thobe.
Christian clergy and choristers still wear ceremonial vestments derived from the robes and tunics of the late Roman empire. The cassock is one such garment.
In China, Japan, and Korea, the traditional dress for both men and women is a long robe. In Japan, this garment is called a kimono; light-weight cotton kimonos are called yukatas and are commonly worn as loungewear.
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Underwear
Skirts and dresses are, like other outer clothing, usually worn with underwear. The kilt, on the other hand, is often worn without underwear. Indeed the uniforms of several Scottish military regiments mandate wearing no underwear with the kilt except at specified occasions.
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See also
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