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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. 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 some fashion designers, such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, have shown men's skirts.
At its simplest, a skirt can be a draped garment made out of a single piece of material (such as pareos), but most skirts are fitted to the body at the waist and fuller below, with the fullness introduced by means of dart, 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 have barely covered the underwear when seated.
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.
History of Western fashion: 1795-1820, 1820s, 1830s, 1840s,1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s Victorian fashion, Artistic Dress movement, Victorian dress reform.
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 was 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:
Basic shapes:
Fads and fashions:
Basic shapes:
Fads and fashions:
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. 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 a 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.
There are a number of male garments which are superficially similar to the skirt or dress. These go by a variety of names and form part of the traditional dress for men from various cultures. Usage varies - the dhoti is part of everyday dress on the Indian subcontinent while the kilt is more usually restricted to occasional wear and the foustanella is used almost exclusively as costume. Examples from various cultures include:
Outside of ethnic communities, 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 seen as cross-dressing although some fashion designers have produced skirts for men and there is a niche market for skirts for outdoor activity wear. There was a brief vogue for male skirts during the late 1990s, with Tom Cruise and David Beckham attracting some comment for wearing them, and Samuel L. Jackson has notably worn a kilt for many public appearances.
Fledgling movements under the names "Men In Skirts" (MIS) and "Male Fashion Freedom" (MFF) also exist to support the wearing of skirts by men.
Skirts and dresses are, like other outer clothing, usually worn with underwear. A wearer of a skirt is likely to wear a form of panties as innerwear, though depending on the occasion, type of material, and type of skirt for modesty one may wear a slip over the panties.
For dresses, one may usually wear a bra, but for modesty wearing a camisole / vest or full slip is also an option for the top.
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 .