Hobble skirt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A hobble skirt is a skirt with a narrow enough hem to significantly impede the wearer's stride, thus earning its name. A dress with such properties is called a hobble dress.
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[edit] History
Although restrictive skirts first appeared in Western fashion in around 1880, the term was first used in reference to a short-lived trend of narrow skirts in around 1913. The Parisian couturier Paul Poiret is sometimes credited with the design but in fact the extreme of the hobble skirt is an evolution of the narrowing skirt seen in fashion since the turn of the century. Poiret had been influencing fashion since 1908 with his designs of orientalist inspired fashions, including kimono cut sleeves and layered draped skirts and harem pants which create the same silhouette. However, Poiret was a liberator of the female body and was instrumental in the modernization of women's dress including corsetless ankle length garments.
Although contemporary publications including postcard images such as the one pictured here make fun of the extremes of the hobble skirt and its tendency to hobble its wearers, most skirts of this period called hobble skirts had slits, hidden pleats, and draping that did not restrict a woman's ability to move freely. After all, it was in this period that women were becoming more active in sports such as bicycling, golf, and tennis. Also, upon the dance floor, the new dances of the tango and foxtrot required women to take large strides and turns, something that would have been impossible in a hobbled hemline. The most restricting extant styles from this period, which truly do hobble the wearer, are found in wedding dresses when a woman was only required to take small measured steps down the aisle of a church.
[edit] Modern history
Long tight skirts would reappear through the century in various forms, particularly in evening gowns, as well as daytime pencil skirts popular in the 1950s. A more literal interpretation of hobble skirts became a mainstay in bondage-oriented fetish fashion, often made out of leather, PVC, or latex. For example, they were a regular topic in the 1950s John Willie fetish magazine, Bizarre.
Hobble skirts are still present today in goth and BDSM communities, but are also sometimes used as evening gowns and wedding dresses and sometimes in other occasions although rarely due to restricting properties. Like other skirts in western civilization they are almost exclusively worn by women, but there are movements, such as MIS that fight for making them acceptable for everyday wear by men.
[edit] Advantages and disadvantages
There are several advantages and disadvantages of hobble skirts.
[edit] Advantages
- Some people enjoy the feeling of legs being "hugged" together by the skirt.
- Due to their tightness and close proximity to the body, hobble skirts can make the wearer feel very warm, without having to wear bifurcated legwear.
[edit] Disadvantages
- They shorten the wearer's stride.
- They render the wearer unable to run
- It is impossible to do things which require spreading legs or having an object between the legs
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- HobbleSkirt.com
- [1] (hundreds of pictures of long tight skirts, a Yahoo address is required)
