A rainy daisy is a style of walking skirt worn during the "

Gay Nineties The Gay Nineties is an American nostalgic term and a periodization of the history of the United States referring to the decade of the 1890s. It is known in the United Kingdom as the Naughty Nineties, and refers there to the decade of supposedly ...

" (1890–1900). The skirts were trimmed to be 2–3 inches off the ground and were worn by members of the "Rainy Day Club". They were so-called because their shorter length meant that, by not trailing and soaking up water, they were easier to keep dry in wet weather. An alternative source for the name suggests that they were called after

Daisy Miller ''Daisy Miller'' is a novella by Henry James that first appeared in ''The Cornhill Magazine'' in June–July 1878, and in book form the following year. It portrays the courtship of the beautiful American girl Daisy Miller by Winterbourne, a so ...

, the eponymous heroine of the 1878 novella by

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

. At their shortest, the skirts could measure six inches off the ground, which was seen as a bold statement of independence on the part of its wearers. Rainy daisy skirts influenced the development in fashion of shorter and slimmer skirts from 1908 onwards. Sometimes the skirts were called "golf skirts" or "walking skirts" as they were practical for sporting pursuits and walking through crowds in urban environments.

References

{{reflist 1890s fashion 1890s introductions 1900s fashion Skirts