by: callumasterman
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Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 Time: 9:50 AM -
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If we count the kilt as a skirt, it remains an item worn by both males and females in Scotland and amongst the Scottish diaspora. Nowadays it is mainly seen on men during official and formal ceremonies such as weddings, funerals and sporting fixtures. The Romans conquered most of Europe with their army wearing skirts, and before them the Greeks saw the item as a manly and noble part of the military outfit, although even in those days, turning up in fancy designer items was probably not wise. But throughout the modern period, the skirt in the western world has been almost exclusively worn by women. Despite fashion designers continually trying to persuade us that men can look good in a skirt, it never seems to catch on, for a host of cultural reasons.
Article Source: DirectoryArticles.com
If you were to perform a 200-year stop-frame animation of the skirt, you'd witness an item of clothing whose lengths, widths and waistlines are constantly on the move as fashions, tastes, cultural freedoms and availability of materials vary. During wartime, for example, to provide a balance between functionality (women are more likely to perform manual labour when the men are away fighting), availability of materials (which will naturally be stretched during wartime) and, to a certain extent, public modesty and respectability.
During the buttoned-up nineteenth century, skirts would drag along the ground and be made of heavy, hard-wearing materials. But as early as 1934, Cole Porter was writing "In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, but now Lord knows, anything goes!" so even by then the strict conservative female dress norms were being stretched. As the song reflects a time of great social upheaval, for women in particular, the lyrics are hopefully more of a celebration than a complaint.
One of most iconinc moments in the history of the skirt came in the sixties, when the mini skirt was introduced by Mary Quant. It's almost comical now to watch footage of people's reactions to seeing the mini skirt out in the wild, a mixture of admiration and shock, but proof that nothing like it had been seen before. The micro-skirt, the even shorter sister of the mini that was a fashin very recently, has thankfully never really caught on in popular culture for modesty reasons we suppose. It would appear that Quant got it about right.
The mini was a stark reaction to the glamorous but difficult-to-wear skirts of the 1950s, which required a feat of engineering to keep them in shape and looking good. Whilst these skirts were welcomeed with open arms as such after many years of war and dressingly conservatively and with events of the day in mind, they were hardly a practical item of clothing.
Nowadays, Cole Porter's lyrics can be taken to mean exactly the way they were written, as anything really does go. A walk down any busy high street will reveal skirts of a multitude of designs, colours, shapes and lengths. Formal, businesslike skirts mix with the crazy, the tight and the free-flowing, and probably more than half the women will be wearing trousers. It's too early to say whether skirts will go the way of the Romans, but it seems reasonable to guess that the skirt is here to stay.
Callum Asterman reports for Rokit vintage clothing and tells us how vintage skirts came to be the style garments they are today.
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