Today, the skirt is the subject of women's wardrobe. The only exception is the kilt, and even then, Scottish men do not wear it daily, but take it out of the closets on holidays and significant days. But at the dawn of mankind, the division into men's and women's clothing did not exist. Ancient people covered only the lower half of the body, using for this purpose loincloths made from the skins of dead animals or plant leaves. We can say that it was then that the history of the skirt began.
The term "skirt", which originated from the Arabic word "jubba", for a long time meant knee-length clothes, gathered at the collar and belted, as well as the lower part of the dress. Only in the 15th-16th century did the skirt separate from the dress, when they began to practice cutting it separately from the bodice.
During the first few millennia, people were equal, so men, women, old people and children dressed about the same. But evolution does not stand still: living conditions have changed, moral, ethical and religious differences have appeared, clothing has also changed. As ancient Greek and Roman history shows us, skirts inIn the modern sense of the word, women in those days did not have, they wore sleeveless tunics and raincoats. And the men of those centuries, the length of the outfit showed their importance and social status: young boys wore short clothes, rich and revered men - longer ones.
The further history of skirts confirms that the practice of demonstrating one's status with the help of the length of clothing has survived into subsequent centuries. Only now women have begun to do this, because gradually the skirt migrated to the women's wardrobe.
Moral and religious prescriptions forbade ladies to show their legs to others, all women began to wear floor-length dresses, but long trains came to the aid of representatives of the rich classes. The Church tried to show that before God all people are equal. Medieval religious figures did not care about the history of skirts, they declared trains to be the invention of the devil and denied absolution to all ladies in "long-tailed" dresses. But, despite all the prohibitions, trains remained popular for several more centuries. The history of the skirt briefly preserved information about the longest train in the world. The dress for the coronation of Queen Catherine II was complemented by a seventy-meter "tail", which was carried by fifty pages.
But fashion is changeable, and in the sixteenth century ladies begin to show off the pomp and width of their skirts. This style began to be called "verdugado", from the Spanish word "verdugo" - "hoop". It was the Spanish fashion designers who came up with the frame of the hoops, which madeskirt voluminous, but did not prevent women from moving relatively easily. Sometimes the outfits were so immense that the ladies could hardly squeeze through the doorways.
The history of skirts does not stop there, numerous petticoats are replacing the frame. In the nineteenth century, the crinoline and bustle were invented. And the skirt in the form in which we know it appeared only in the twentieth century. Mini, maxi, slit skirts, pencils and pleats - in the arsenal of modern women there is a huge variety of such seductive wardrobe details.
