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63-455: At its simplest, a skirt can be a draped garment made out of a single piece of fabric (such as pareos ). However, most skirts are fitted to the body at the waist or hips and fuller below, with the fullness introduced by means of darts , 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

126-496: A darning egg and a separate comb-like piece with teeth to hook the warp over; these are used for repairing knitted garments and are like a linear knitting spool . Darning looms were sold during World War Two clothing rationing in the United Kingdom and Canada, and some are homemade. Circular looms are used to create seamless tubes of fabric for products such as hosiery, sacks, clothing, fabric hoses (such as fire hoses) and

189-591: A garment initially known as the "Turkish dress", which featured a knee-length skirt over Turkish-style pantaloons. Bloomer came to advocate and promote the dress, including instructions for making it, in The Lily , a newspaper dedicated to the "Emancipation of Woman from Intemperance, Injustice, Prejudice, and Bigotry". This inspired a craze for the dress, which came to be known as bloomers . Elizabeth Cady Stanton , Susan B. Anthony , and Lucy Stone , other early advocates for women's rights, also adopted this style of dress in

252-477: A loom that folds into a narrow space when not in use. Loom frames can be roughly divided, by the orientation of the warp threads, into horizontal looms and vertical looms. There are many finer divisions. Most handloom frame designs can be constructed fairly simply. The back-strap loom (also known as belt loom) is a simple loom with ancient roots, still used in many cultures around the world (such as Andean textiles ). It consists of two sticks or bars between which

315-441: A lot of floor space, and full-time professional weavers are unlikely to use them as they are unergonomic. Their cheapness and portability is less valuable to urban professional weavers. In a treadle loom, the shedding is controlled by the feet, which tread on the treadles . The earliest evidence of a horizontal loom is found on a pottery dish in ancient Egypt , dated to 4400 BC. It was a frame loom, equipped with treadles to lift

378-494: A means of injecting novelty into male attire, most famously the sarong seen on David Beckham . There are a number of garments marketed to men which fall under the category of "skirt" or "dress". These go by a variety of names and form part of the traditional dress for men from various cultures. Usage varies – the dhoti is part of everyday dress on the Indian subcontinent while the kilt is more usually restricted to occasional wear and

441-436: A piece of cloth longer than the loom. As the cloth is woven, the warp threads are gradually unrolled from the warp beam, and the woven portion of the cloth is rolled up onto the cloth beam (which is also called the takeup roll ). The portion of the fabric that has already been formed but not yet rolled up on the takeup roll is called the fell . Not all looms have two beams. For instance, warp-weighted looms have only one beam;

504-412: A second beam, so that the warp threads all lie parallel and are all the same length. The beams are held apart to keep the warp threads taut. The textile is woven starting at one end of the warp threads, and progressing towards the other end. The beam on the finished-fabric end is called the cloth beam . The other beam is called the warp beam . Beams may be used as rollers to allow the weaver to weave

567-418: A shed. To create the counter-shed, a heddle-bar is usually used. A heddle-bar is simply a stick placed across the warp and tied to individual warp threads. When it is lifted, it pulls the warp threads it is tied to out of position, creating a shed. A warp-weighted loom (see diagram) typically uses a heddle-bar. It has two upright posts (C); they support a horizontal beam (D), which is cylindrical so that

630-591: A single-shaft loom. The different shafts (also called harnesses) must be controlled by some mechanism. While non-rigid heddles generally mean that two shafts are needed even for a plain tabby weave , twill weaves require three or more (depending on the type of twill), and more complex figured weaves require still more harnesses. Treadle looms can control multiple harnessess with multiple treadles. The weaver selects which harnesses are engaged with their feet. One treadle may be connected to more than one harness, and any number of treadles can be engaged at once, meaning that

693-482: A tabletop. others are backstraps looms with a rigid heddle , and very portable. There exist very small hand-held looms known as darning looms. They are made to fit under the fabric being mended, and are often held in place by an elastic band on one side of the cloth and a groove around the loom's darning-egg portion on the other. They may have heddles made of flip-flopping rotating hooks (see Loom#Rotating-hook heddles ) . Other devices sold as darning looms are just

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756-477: A type of fur skirt tied to a belt. The term originally referred to a sheep's fleece , but eventually came to be applied to the garment itself. Eventually, the animal pelts were replaced by "kaunakes cloth", a textile that imitated fleecy sheepskin. Kaunakes cloth also served as a symbol in religious iconography, such as in the fleecy cloak of John the Baptist . Ancient Egyptian garments were mainly made of linen. For

819-399: Is a device that replaces the drawboy, the weaver's helper who used to control the warp threads by pulling on draw threads. "Dobby" is a corruption of "draw boy". Mechanical dobbies pull on the draw threads using pegs in bars to lift a set of levers. The placement of the pegs determines which levers are lifted. The sequence of bars (they are strung together) effectively remembers the sequence for

882-466: Is done on two sets of threads or yarns, which cross one another. The warp threads are the ones stretched on the loom (from the Proto-Indo-European * werp , "to bend" ). Each thread of the weft (i.e. "that which is woven") is inserted so that it passes over and under the warp threads. The ends of the warp threads are usually fastened to beams. One end is fastened to one beam, the other end to

945-409: Is used for narrow work . It is also used to finish edges, weaving decorative selvage bands instead of hemming. There are heddles made of flip-flopping rotating hooks, which raise and lower the warp, creating sheds . The hooks, when vertical, have the weft threads looped around them horizontally. If the hooks are flopped over on side or another, the loop of weft twists, raising one or the other side of

1008-553: Is used to control each warp thread separately, allowing very complex patterns. A drawloom requires two operators, the weaver, and an assistant called a "drawboy" to manage the figure harness. The earliest confirmed drawloom fabrics come from the State of Chu and date c. 400 BC. Some scholars speculate an independent invention in ancient Syria , since drawloom fabrics found in Dura-Europas are thought to date before 256 AD. The draw loom

1071-699: The Aboyne dress , which actually involves a skirt, for the national dances, and wear a kilt -based outfit for the Highland dances. Draped garment A draped garment (draped dress) is a garment that is made of a single piece of cloth that is draped around the body; drapes are not cut away or stitched as in a tailored garment. Drapes can be held to the body by means of knotting , pinning , fibulae , clasps , sashes , belts , tying drawstrings , or just plain friction and gravity alone. Many draped garments consist of only one single piece. An advanced form of

1134-881: The New Kingdom of Egypt , kilts with a pleated triangular section became fashionable for men. Beneath these, a shente, or triangular loincloth whose ends were fastened with cord ties, were worn. During the Bronze Age , in the Southern parts of Western and Central Europe, wraparound dress-like garments were preferred. However, in Northern Europe, people also wore skirts and blouses. In the Middle Ages , men and women preferred dress-like garments. The lower part of men's dresses were much shorter in length compared to those for women. They were wide cut and often pleated or gored so that horse riding

1197-751: The fustanella is used almost exclusively as costume. Robes, which are a type of dress for men, have existed in many cultures, including the Japanese kimono , the Chinese cheongsam , the Arabic thobe , and the African Senegalese kaftan . Robes are also used in some religious orders, such as the cassock in Christianity and various robes and cloaks that may be used in pagan rituals. Examples of men's skirts and skirt-like garments from various cultures include: Aside from

1260-436: The saṃghāti as the most visible part of the buddhist attire. It is worn over the upper robe ( uttarāsaṅga ). Uttarāsaṅga is a robe covering the upper body that comes over the undergarment, or antarvāsa . The antarvāsa is the inner robe covering the lower body. The latter are covered with saṃghāti . More examples of draped clothing are: Wrapped and draped dresses continue to inspire many fashion designers. Madame Grès

1323-525: The 1850s, referring to it as the "freedom dress". Concurrently, some female labourers, notably the pit brow women working at coal pits in the Wigan area, began wearing trousers beneath a short skirt as a practical component of their uniform. This attracted the attention of the public, and various photographers produced records of the women's unconventional manner of dress through the mid to late 19th century. After 1915, ankle-length skirts were not generally worn in

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1386-500: The backstrap loom. The warp-weighted loom is a vertical loom that may have originated in the Neolithic period. Its defining characteristic is hanging weights (loom weights) which keep bundles of the warp threads taut. Frequently, extra warp thread is wound around the weights. When a weaver has woven far enough down, the completed section (fell) can be rolled around the top beam, and additional lengths of warp threads can be unwound from

1449-470: The basic function is the same. The word "loom" derives from the Old English geloma , formed from ge- (perfective prefix) and loma , a root of unknown origin; the whole word geloma meant a utensil, tool, or machine of any kind. In 1404 "lome" was used to mean a machine to enable weaving thread into cloth. By 1838 "loom" had gained the additional meaning of a machine for interlacing thread. Weaving

1512-477: The beams can be simply held apart by hooking them behind pegs driven into the ground, with wedges or lashings used to adjust the tension. Pegged looms may, however, also have horizontal sidepieces holding the beams apart. Such looms are easy to set up and dismantle, and are easy to transport, so they are popular with nomadic weavers. They are generally only used for comparatively small woven articles. Urbanites are unlikely to use horizontal floor looms as they take up

1575-429: The bottom. At the other extreme, the miniskirts of the 1960s were minimal garments that may have barely covered the underwear when the woman was seated. Costume historians typically use the word " petticoat " to describe skirt-like garments of the 18th century or earlier. During the 19th century, the cut of women's dresses in western culture varied more widely than in any other century. Waistlines started just below

1638-470: The bust (the Empire silhouette ) and gradually sank to the natural waist. Skirts started fairly narrow and increased dramatically to the hoopskirt and crinoline -supported styles of the 1860s; then fullness was draped and drawn to the back by means of bustles . In the 1890s, the rainy daisy skirt was introduced for walking or sportswear. It had a significantly shorter hemline measuring as much as six inches off

1701-485: The daytime. For the next fifty years fashionable skirts became short (1920s), then long (1930s), then shorter (in the War Years with their restrictions on fabric), then long (the " New Look "), then shortest of all from 1967 to 1970, when skirts became as short as possible while avoiding exposure of underwear , which was considered taboo . Since the 1970s and the rise of pants/trousers for women as an option for all but

1764-696: The decision of allowing girls to wear trousers is with individual schools. In the 1980s in Puerto Rico, Ana Irma Rivera Lassén was not allowed to enter court in trousers and was told to wear a skirt. She sued the judge and won. In 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled against the Charter Day School in North Carolina, which had required girls to wear skirts due to

1827-489: The design. Multiple rows of holes are punched on each card and the many cards that compose the design of the textile are strung together in order. It is based on earlier inventions by the Frenchmen Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean Baptiste Falcon (1728), and Jacques Vaucanson (1740). To call it a loom is a misnomer. A Jacquard head could be attached to a power loom or a handloom, the head controlling which warp thread

1890-512: The earliest known cultures to have females wear clothing resembling miniskirts were the Duan Qun Miao ( Chinese : 短裙苗 ), which literally means "Short Skirt Miao". 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 premodern and early modern times. In the Middle Ages , some upper-class women wore skirts over three meters in diameter at

1953-415: The fell. The nature of the loom frame and the shedding, picking, and battening devices vary. Looms come in a wide variety of types, many of them specialized for specific types of weaving. They are also specialized for the lifestyle of the weaver. For instance, nomadic weavers tend to use lighter, more portable looms, while weavers living in cramped city dwellings are more likely to use a tall upright loom, or

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2016-422: The finished cloth can be rolled around it, allowing the loom to be used to weave a piece of cloth taller than the loom, and preserving an ergonomic working height. The warp threads (F, and A and B) hang from the beam and rest against the shed rod (E). The heddle-bar (G) is tied to some of the warp threads (A, but not B), using loops of string called leashes (H). So when the heddle rod is pulled out and placed in

2079-466: The forked sticks protruding from the posts (not lettered, no technical term given in citation), the shed (1) is replaced by the counter-shed (2). By passing the weft through the shed and the counter-shed, alternately, cloth is woven. Heddle-rods are used on modern tapestry looms. Tablet weaving uses cards punched with holes. The warp threads pass through the holes, and the cards are twisted and shifted to created varied sheds. This shedding technique

2142-510: The garment is the tailored dress , which is constructed from fabric that has been cut into pieces and stitched together to fit various parts of the body. In comparison to draped dresses, they are more fitted to the body. Draping is a most ancient and widespread form of clothing. Many visual arts of the Romans and Indian sculptures , terracottas , cave paintings , and wood carvings (also shown in picture gallery) representing men and women show

2205-682: The ground and would eventually influence the wider introduction of shorter hemlines in the early 20th century. In the 19th century, in the United States and United Kingdom, there was a movement against skirts as part of the Victorian dress reform movement , and in the United States, the National Dress Reform Association . There was also the invention of different ways to wear skirts. For example, in 1851, early women's rights advocate Elizabeth Smith Miller introduced Amelia Bloomer to

2268-498: The idea that girls are "fragile vessels" deserving "gentle" treatment from boys. The court ruled the requirement was unconstitutional. Since 2004, the International Skating Union has allowed women to wear trousers instead of skirts in competition if they wish. Many forms of dancing require women to wear skirts or dresses, either by convention or competition rules. In Scottish highland dancing , for example, women wear

2331-497: The like. Tablet weaving can be used to knit tubes, including tubes that split and join. Small jigs also used for circular knitting are also sometimes called circular looms, but they are used for knitting, not weaving. It is possible to weave by manually threading the weft over and under the warp threads, but this is slow. Some tapestry techniques use manual shedding. Pin looms and peg looms also generally have no shedding devices. Pile carpets generally do not use shedding for

2394-436: The loop, which creates the shed and countershed. Rigid heddles are generally used on single-shaft looms. Odd warp threads go through the slots, and even ones through the circular holes, or vice-versa. The shed is formed by lifting the heddle, and the countershed by depressing it. The warp threads in the slots stay where they are, and the ones in the circular holes are pulled back and forth. A single rigid heddle can hold all

2457-487: The material of the skirt drape better and for modesty. In modern times, skirts are very commonly worn by women and girls. Some exceptions include the izaar , worn by many Muslim cultures, and the kilt , a traditional men's garment in Scotland, Ireland, and sometimes England. The hemline of skirts can vary from micro to floor-length and can vary according to cultural conceptions of modesty and aesthetics as well as

2520-414: The most formal of occasions, no one skirt length has dominated fashion for long, with short and ankle-length styles often appearing side by side in fashion magazines and catalogs. Fashion designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier , Vivienne Westwood , Kenzo and Marc Jacobs have also shown men's skirts . Transgressing social codes, Gaultier frequently introduces the skirt into his men's wear collections as

2583-456: The most publicised possibly being Jo Hale vs Whickham Comprehensive in 2000. Although it is commonly accepted that girls may wear trousers to school, no test case is known to have been brought before the courts, making the legal position uncertain on requiring skirts as part of girls' uniforms. The rule is still enforced in many schools, particularly independent and selective state schools. In fact, United Kingdom government guidelines expressly state

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2646-417: The number of different sheds that can be selected is two to the power of the number of treadles. Eight is a large but reasonable number of treadles, giving a maximum of 2 =256 sheds (some of which will not have enough threads on one side to be useful). The weaver must remember the sequence of treadling needed to produce the pattern. A drawloom is for weaving figured cloth. In a drawloom, a "figure harness"

2709-577: The pattern. Speed is lower, and shedding and picking devices may be simpler. Looms used for weaving traditional tapestry are called not as "vertical-warp" and "horizontal-warp", but as "high-warp" or "low-warp" (the French terms haute-lisse and basse-lisse are also used in English). Inkle looms are narrow looms used for narrow work . They are used to make narrow warp-faced strips such as ribbons, bands, or tape. They are often quite small; some are used on

2772-409: The pile, because each pile thread is individually knotted onto the warps, but there may be shedding for the weft holding the carpet together. Usually weaving uses shedding devices. These devices pull some of the warp threads to each side, so that a shed is formed between them, and the weft is passed through the shed. There are a variety of methods for forming the shed. At least two sheds must be formed,

2835-511: The same, unstitched clothes with various wrapping and draping styles. Uttariya , and Antariya are few evident clothing items of draped garments from the Vedic period . Kasaya , another rectangular piece of the Buddhist robe, is a real example of the draped garment. Further evolved forms are Sari, and Odhni, etc. The kāṣāya , also called jiāshā ( Chinese : 袈裟), consists of three pieces, with

2898-408: The shed and the countershed. Two sheds is enough for tabby weave ; more complex weaves, such as twill weaves , satin weaves , diaper weaves , and figured (picture-forming) weaves, require more sheds. A shed-rod (shedding stick, shed roll) is simply a stick woven through the warp threads. When pulled perpendicular to the threads (or rotated to stand on edge, for wide, flat shedding rods), it creates

2961-758: The territory of present-day Serbia and neighboring Balkans from the start of the Copper Age show women in skirt-like garments. A straw-woven skirt dating to 3900 BC was discovered in Armenia at the Areni-1 cave . Skirts were the standard attire for men and women in all ancient cultures in the Near East and Egypt . The Sumerians in Mesopotamia wore kaunakes ( Ancient Greek : καυνάκης , romanized :  kaunákēs , ultimately from Sumerian : 𒌆𒄖𒅘𒆪 GU-NAK-KU ),

3024-477: The threads (those passing through the heddles), and lowering the shaft lowers the same threads — the threads passing through the spaces between the heddles remain in place. A treadle loom for figured weaving may have a large number of harnesses or a control head. It can, for instance, have a Jacquard machine attached to it (see Loom#Shedding methods) . Tapestry can have extremely complex wefts, as different strands of wefts of different colours are used to form

3087-536: The upper classes, they were beautifully woven and intricately pleated. Around 2130 BC, during the Old Kingdom of Egypt , men wore wraparound skirts (kilts) known as the shendyt . They were made of a rectangular piece of cloth wrapped around the lower body and tied in front. By the Middle Kingdom of Egypt , longer skirts, reaching from the waist to ankles and sometimes hanging from the armpits, became fashionable. During

3150-476: The warp beam, unwinding from it. To become fully automatic, a loom needs a tertiary motion , the filling stop motion. This will brake the loom if the weft thread breaks. An automatic loom requires 0.125 hp to 0.5 hp to operate (100W to 400W). A loom, then, usually needs two beams, and some way to hold them apart. It generally has additional components to make shedding, picking, and battening faster and easier. There are also often components to help take up

3213-416: The warp threads, leaving the weaver's hands free to pass and beat the weft thread. A pit loom has a pit for the treadles, reducing the stress transmitted through the much shorter frame. In a wooden vertical-shaft loom, the heddles are fixed in place in the shaft. The warp threads pass alternately through a heddle, and through a space between the heddles (the shed ), so that raising the shaft raises half

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3276-450: The warp threads, though sometimes multiple rigid heddles are used. Treadles may be used to drive the rigid heddle up and down. Rigid heddles (above) are called "rigid" to distinguish them from string and metal heddles, where each warp thread has its own heddle, which has an eye at each end and one in the middle for the warp thread. The eyes in the ends are fastened to a shaft, all in a row. This requires multiple shafts; it cannot be done on

3339-408: The warp yarns hang from this beam. The bottom ends of the warp yarns are tied to dangling loom weights. A loom has to perform three principal motions : shedding, picking, and battening. There are also usually two secondary motions , because the newly constructed fabric must be wound onto cloth beam. This process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be let off or released from

3402-563: The warps are stretched. One bar is attached to a fixed object and the other to the weaver, usually by means of a strap around the weaver's back. The weaver leans back and uses their body weight to tension the loom. Both simple and complex textiles can be woven on backstrap looms. They produce narrowcloth : width is limited to the weaver's armspan. They can readily produce warp-faced textiles, often decorated with intricate pick-up patterns woven in complementary and supplementary warp techniques, and brocading. Balanced weaves are also possible on

3465-470: The wearer's personal taste, which can be influenced by such factors as fashion and social context. Most skirts are complete garments, but some skirt-looking panels may be part of another garment such as leggings , shorts , and swimsuits . Skirts have been worn since prehistoric times as the simplest way to cover the lower body. Figurines produced by the Vinča culture ( c.  5700 –4500 BC) located on

3528-460: The wearing of kilts , in the Western world skirts, dresses, and similar garments are generally viewed exclusively as women's clothing which, historically, was not always the case. However, some Western men have taken up skirts as forms of civil protest. Other Western men advocate skirts as a measure of co-equality between women and men. The skirt is a part of uniforms for girls in many schools around

3591-400: The weaver. Computer-controlled dobbies use solenoids instead of pegs. The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, which simplifies the process of manufacturing figured textiles with complex patterns such as brocade , damask , and matelasse . The loom is controlled by punched cards with punched holes, each row of which corresponds to one row of

3654-408: The weights to continue. This frees the weaver from vertical size constraint. Horizontally, breadth is limited by armspan; making broadwoven cloth requires two weavers, standing side by side at the loom. Simple weaves, and complex weaves that need more than two different sheds, can both be woven on a warp-weighted loom. They can also be used to produce tapestries. [REDACTED] In pegged looms,

3717-513: The world, with lengths varying depending on local culture. The pleated tartan skirt began as a component of girls' school uniforms in the early twentieth century in the United Kingdom. Most UK schools now allow girls to wear trousers, but many girls still wear skirts in primary and secondary schools, even where the choice of trousers is given. In the late 20th and early 21st century, many schools began changing their uniform rules to allow trousers for girls amidst opposition to skirts-only policies -

3780-407: Was a well-known French couturier known for her draping art. Her most notable work are so-called floor-length draped Grecian goddess gowns. Loom A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry . The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but

3843-500: Was invented in China during the Han dynasty ( State of Liu ?); foot-powered multi-harness looms and jacquard looms were used for silk weaving and embroidery, both of which were cottage industries with imperial workshops. The drawloom enhanced and sped up the production of silk and played a significant role in Chinese silk weaving. The loom was introduced to Persia, India, and Europe. A dobby head

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3906-468: Was more comfortable. Even a knight's armor had a short metal skirt below the breastplate. It covered the straps attaching the upper legs iron cuisse to the breastplate. Technological advances in weaving in the 13th–15th century, like foot-treadle floor looms and scissors with pivoted blades and handles, improved tailoring trousers and tights. They became fashionable for men and henceforth became standard male attire whilst becoming taboo for women. One of

3969-402: Was raised during shedding. Multiple shuttles could be used to control the colour of the weft during picking. The Jacquard loom is the predecessor to the computer punched card readers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The weft may be passed across the shed as a ball of yarn, but usually this is too bulky and unergonomic. Shuttles are designed to be slim, so they pass through the shed; to carry

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