How Skirts were affected by Politics, Economy and WWI!

 

Back in the 1900s the Gibson girl look was in, where the poor women had to wear killer corsets to make their stomach invisible and make their chests bigger than their heads with long high waist skirts. It was a kind of torture they couldn’t climb stairs from the heaviness of the skirts and tightness of corsets so they revolted demanding shorter skirts. As a result, they wore a 4 inch shorter skirt but still they wanted more freedom in their outfits. 

When World War One started, women needed to take men’s roles and that’s when the “Suited and Booted” look was In. They wore midi skirts with boots, still no legs were showing.

In 1929 the market and economy crashed due to WWI so they made the skirts shorter with less fabric since no one could afford fancy fabrics anymore and that’s when the Flapper Dress came to life and women’s legs started coming to light. Flapper Dresses in the very late 20s were 3 inches below the knee. It’s really crazy how the fashion business is affected by politics, economy and wars.

The Regular Skirt as we know it

Designers started to emerge in the 40’s and 50’s and creativity was over the roof. Coping royals became so retro and designer houses opened their doors. Christian Dior excelled in making the well known puffed knee length skirts. Long skirts were Out skirts on the knee were In. Still ladies, nothing was above the knee and all were midi and long skirts showing no thighs. Pleated skirts made from layers of small coats to give it a lift started to become the prominent trend. After the war, buying fabrics was a challenge so the fuller the skirt the richer you were.

The struggle of the mini skirt

Finally this era brings us the lifeless mini skirt. Women never had freedom until the 60’s. After credits card and abortion pills made their way into the revolutionary road, women proved to become freer and open minded. Mary Quant and Andre Courreges were the masterminds behind the Mini Skirt. They both created it in the same year the thing that made them fight dramatically over who created it first.

In this day and age, we have lots of lengths, shapes and sizes of skirts to choose from and the world has more reasonable causes to call for other than the length of a skirt.

Goodbye interesting times…