A skort is a pair of shorts with an overlapping fabric panel made to resemble a skirt covering the front and back, or a skirt with a pair of integral shorts hidden underneath (also can be called sport skirts) .

History

Field hockey skort (50269656266) (cropped)

While some garments sold as

culottes Culottes are an item of clothing worn on the lower half of the body. The term can refer to either split skirts, historical men's breeches, or women's under-pants; this is an example of fashion-industry words taken from designs across history, l ...

resemble short

trousers Trousers (British English), slacks, or pants are an item of clothing worn from the waist to anywhere between the knees and the ankles, covering both legs separately (rather than with cloth extending across both legs as in robes, skirts, and dr ...

, to be skorts they need to look like skirts. They are distinguished from trousers or shorts by a fuller cut at the bottom (

hem A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the ga ...

) than at the waist. Initially called "trouser skirts," skorts were developed to provide more freedom to do activities (such as sports, gardening, cleaning, or bike riding), and give the appearance of a skirt. At first, skorts were not deemed appropriate to be worn during any non-athletic activity. Montgomery Ward claimed in their 1959 Spring/Summer catalog to have invented the garment they called a skort. It was a short knife or accordion pleated skirt with an attached bloomer underneath. Years later, the term was applied to a pair of shorts with a flap of fabric across the front (and often the back) making the garment appear to be a skirt. In recent years, the term skort has been given to any skirt with an attached pair of shorts.

Predecessors

The origins of skorts may be related back to earlier garments like bloomers and jupe-culottes which grew in popularity in the late 19th century and early 20th century, despite common public disapproval for women wearing pants. In 1911, Paul Poiret produced several designs that were a combination of skirts and trousers, and they became known as jupe-culottes or as

harem pants Harem pants or harem trousers are baggy, long pants caught in at the ankle. Early on, the style was also called a harem skirt. The original so-called 'harem pants/skirts' were introduced to Western fashion by designers such as Paul Poiret around 1 ...

. Similar to skorts, culottes involve various styles that may appear as a hybrid between pants and skirts. Skorts are distinguished by their construction as a pair of shorts with material over it to make it appear as a skirt.

Women's sports

Skorts are popular in sports such as

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

ten-pin bowling Ten-pin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The objective is to knock down all ten pins on the first roll ...

and

camogie Camogie ( ; ga, camógaíocht ) is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and worldwide, largely among Irish communities. A variant of the game of hurling (which is played by men onl ...

, and are often part of girls' athletic uniforms. The first noted skort-like clothing to be worn as tennis attire was done so by the Spanish player,

Lilí Álvarez Elia Maria González-Álvarez y López-Chicheri, also known as Lilí Álvarez (; 9 May 1905 – 8 July 1998), was a Spanish multi-sport competitor, an international tennis champion, an author, feminist and a journalist. Life She was born at the ...

, who wore a pair of culottes which had been shaped to resemble a skirt during her Wimbledon match in 1931.

References

Skirts Trousers and shorts 2000s fashion 2010s fashion {{Fashion-stub

History

Predecessors

Women's sports

See also

References