In the western world, skirts are usually considered women's clothing. However, there are exceptions. The kilt is 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 are usually made of light to mid-weight fabrics, such as denim, jersey, worsted, or poplin. Skirts of thin or clingy fabrics are often worn with slips to make the material of the skirt drape better and for modesty.
The hemline of skirts 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 three 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.
Costume historians typically use the word "petticoat" to describe skirt-like garments of the 18th century or earlier.
The earliest known culture to have females wear clothing resembling miniskirts were the Duan Qun Miao, which literally meant "short skirt Miao" in Chinese. This was in reference to the short miniskirts "that barely cover the buttocks" worn by women of the tribe, and which were "probably shocking" to observers in medieval and early modern times.
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Since the 1970s and the rise of pants for women as an option for all but the most formal of occasions, not one skirt length has dominated fashion for long, with short and ankle-length styles often appearing side-by-side in fashion magazines and catalogs.
In Punjabi, it's known as a "lehnga". In South India, it is known as a langa (in Kannada and Telugu), a pavada (in Malayalam) or a pavadai (in Tamil).
In the Western world skirts, dresses and similar garments are considered primarily women's clothing today although historically that was not the case. The wearing of skirts by men in these areas was generally seen as cross-dressing although some fashion designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier have produced skirts for men and kilts are widely accepted in some situations.
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