Skirts
By Sylvia Silk
Skirts - tight skirts - split skirts - twirly skirts - flirty skirts. If you didn't love them, the chances are that you wouldn't be reading this.
The skirt, more than any other object, can stand for the entire femi- nine outfit. In writing transvestite articles, one often needs a phrase meaning 'a feminine presentation'. Repeating the same phrase time after time would make for dull reading, so we writers rack our brains for something different from 'en femme' or 'cross dressed'. 'In a skirt' is a fairly popular variation on the theme. Here, 'skirts' stands for not only an entire set of clothes, but for the wig, the make-up, everything.
If a skirt can stand - so effectively - for the entire outfit, it clearly carries a special significance for transvestites. It defines, in some way, what we are. It is part of our lives - and, undeniably, an object of desire.
Lawrence Langer thought that 'the invention of the trouser and the skirt has enabled western men and women to achieve a balance social and sexual relationship.....' (The Importance of Wearing Clothes p70). Quite an achievement for a pair of garments! Perhaps the skirt stands for even more than it seems. Entire outfits are small beer compared with Langer's 'balanced social and sexual relationship'.
For all of that, skirts are so much a part of my life - watching them on other people, wearing them myself - that often I take them for granted. But the skirt is quite a triumph of human ingenuity. In basis, it is the simplest - and very likely the first - garment worn by the human race. I suppose that the first skirt was a strip of animal skin fixed round the waist, very likely held in place with a bone pin.
How different are the skirts in my wardrobe! They are complex structures formed from various pieces of carefully shaped fabric. I have a panel skirt made from twelve separate pieces of cloth, each in the form of a truncated triangle. In addition, it has a separate waist band and zip.
I'm sure it's not the most complex skirt ever sewn - and maybe not even be the most complex of mine.
Separately shaped pieces of fabric aside, there are pleats, tucks, darts, splits.... A lot of work goes into designing and making a skirt. People have devoted a lot of thought to the matter. Put in a lot of effort. The thought and effort are not random. Not only transves- tites, but people in general obviously like and desire skirts. They are widely considered worth the time, thought and effort they consume.
There's a lot of pleasure in watching a well-designed skirt in motion. While trousers are essentially lifeless, a skirt is much more like a living thing - especially a fairly full skirt. The hemline hops like a rabbit or flutters like a bird. And with each hop or flutter, areas of the leg emerge or vanish. I am sometimes reminded of the sea - the rise and fall of the hemline like the bobbing of waves.
Especially interesting variations in the life of the hemline can be achieved with splits. Although they're currently (and I trust, tem- porarily) not much in fashion, I harbour a lot of fond memories of skirts split above knee level.
A teenage fashion, which I recall with particular affection, teamed over the knee socks and knee-length skirts with a small back split. As the girl stepped, a small triangle of thigh above the sock kept appearing and vanishing. It was an enchanting sight.
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