A gender neutral guide to twirly skirts for contra dance

By Robert Hickman and Louise Siddons.

Twirly skirts are a great aspect of contra dancing, flowing naturally with one's movements and generally looking awesome. Every contra dancer should be able to wear one if they want, why not?

Some may be put off by gender stereotypes, but in fact wrapping fabric around the waist is an obvious way to cover the lower body and people of all genders have been doing so for thousands of years, from ancient Egypt to the Romans, through to medieval Europe—not to mention in cultural traditions around the world up to the modern day (we know some of you are already thinking about kilts!).

In fact, our gendered understanding of skirts in contemporary Euro-American culture (and the cultures it has influenced) represents a vanishingly narrow section of human experience. Skirts should be for everyone, men, women, or however else you identify, and we’d thoroughly recommend that every contra dancer try one at least once.

Let’s think about how to choose a skirt for a satisfying dance experience. What kinds of skirts work well? What should one look out for when choosing a skirt for contra dance?

Because everyone’s level of knowledge about skirts is different, we’re going to explain everything as we go. The descriptions here should make it easy to evaluate the dance potential of a skirt you see in a shop, and help you find relevant tutorials if you wish to make your own.

To ensure that we are all on the same page, a ‘skirt’ is any garment covering the lower body formed by one section instead of two. Often they are hung from a waistband, but ‘skirt’ also refers to the lower part of a dress, attached to an upper ‘bodice’ forming a single garment hung from the shoulders. The article applies to those as well, but our main focus is skirts hung from the waist.

Despite being a simple idea in principle, there are many different kinds of skirt:

Wrap skirts, where the skirt and waistband are not joined along one edge. They wrap around the body, much the same as you’d wrap a towel around yourself, and are usually secured with ties.
A skirt and waistband mostly sewn into a complete tube, with a split extending a few inches down from the waistband closed by a zipper, button, ties, lacing, or hook and eye, enabling it to be pulled over the hips before being fastened.
Elasticated waistband skirts, where all seams are sewn closed, and can be pulled on easily.
Skirts may also be made where the waistband is split on both sides, with slits extending a few inches part-way down the skirt. The front and back panels are then secured with ties or lacing allowing a lot of size adjustability. ‘Split side skirt’ and ‘coquelicot skirt’ are useful search terms.

It is worth noting though that skirts are commonly worn at the natural waist, the narrowest part of the torso, and due to this may sit higher on your body than you are used to if you’ve only previously worn trousers.

There are many factors that influence how a skirt will behave in a dance, and can be adapted as needed to fit personal preference.

1: Fullness

The first thing to consider is fullness, how much fabric there is in the skirt.

If you were to imagine tying a loop of rope around your legs at the ankles, the diameter of the loop would constrain how far you are able to step. Skirts work in much the same way, a very long straight skirt for instance would be very constraining - this skirt style is called a ‘hobble skirt’.

Because of this, dance skirts are shaped like a cone, narrower at the waist, and becoming larger in diameter towards the bottom. The rate at which this cone flares is called ‘fullness’, and a skirt with more fabric around the base is said to be more ‘full’.

You can get an idea of how full a given skirt is when you’re wearing it by grabbing opposite sides of the hem (the edge of the open bottom) and pulling up and out - how much can you pull before you run out of fabric? Some skirts are so full you can lift them above your head!

Fuller skirts are less constraining and will move a lot more as you dance, for example a long and very full skirt can flare out a great distance from you in swings and twirls. But, they are also much more affected by wind, and can show a lot of the body.

There are many ways of constructing full skirts, and having an awareness of them will help you understand what you’re looking at in a shop or online. All of the following kinds of skirt can work well for contra dance:

Circle skirts

The circle skirt is probably the simplest kind of full skirt, and is literally a large circle of fabric with a hole in the middle for the wearer's waist. When worn the fabric around the outside falls down, creating waves around the bottom of the skirt, leaving the hem very full without adding bulk at the waistline.

Circle skirts flare very widely, and in a fast enough twirl can stand out horizontally from the torso. This contrasts particularly with skirts that use godets (next heading), in which the flare will start from the top of the inserted triangle, which may be partway down the skirt, rather than from the waistline.

If you change the shape of the 'circle', you also get a variety of irregular / asymmetrical hem lines; a square of fabric with a circle cut at the centre, for instance, creates the distinctive four-pointed 'hanky hem' skirt.

Godet / Gored skirts

Godet skirts begin with a parallel tube, and solve the problem of limited mobility by cutting vertical slits up from the bottom and inserting triangles of fabric called ‘godets’ or ‘gores’ to increase the fullness of the skirt.

Godets are often made with fabrics of differing colours and patterns which become visible when the skirt flares. They can also be shaped in various ways to alter the shape of the skirt’s flare, with results ranging from a cone, to a bell-shaped flare.

If the godets added increase the circumference of the hem so much that it is more than a complete circle, the extra fabric will form into ripples when it flares.

Technically ‘godets’ and ‘gores’ are similar but different things, although casually many people use the terms interchangeably. Technical definitions of the two are easily found in sewing guides.

Gathered skirts

A gathered skirt is a different way of making a full skirt out of a rectangle. The idea is essentially the inverse of a godet skirt, instead of adding fabric to the hem, we start with rectangle that would form a tube that is much too large at the waist, which is then bunched or ‘gathered’ down to fit, much like the drawstring at the waist of tracksuit bottoms.

Gathers are created by sewing a loose running stitch along the waistline hem and pulling it tight, and this adds bulk. Thus skirts which gather a large volume of fabric have a profile where they flare out rapidly at the waistline, and then fall vertically.

Because this bulking at the waist may not be desirable, gathered skirts are often slashed vertically from the waist with triangles of fabric removed, like an inverse gore. They may also be tiered, with a series of progressively wider rings, in order to distribute the bulk of the gathers along the length of the skirt and thereby increase the skirt’s flare.

'Gypsy' skirts are a good example of tiered gathers used to create a long skirt with wide flare. In most cases, the flare of a gathered skirt, tiered or otherwise, will be less than the flare of a skirt with gores or godets.

Longer gathered skirts without tiers also have a quite distinctive flare, spreading out rapidly at the waist and tapering down to be vertically parallel below that point.

Pleated skirts

Pleats are a regular pattern of folds put into fabric, which are ironed and sewn into place. They serve the same function as gathers, but being created by deliberate folding, have a much more ‘orderly’ appearance.

Relative to the other options, both pleats and gathering can significantly inhibit flare and a pleated skirt will generally be less ‘flowy’ than a gored or circle skirt. It does depend on the kind of pleat and type and amount of fabric in the skirt though.

Numerous kinds of pleats exist having different visual appearance, and descriptions and pictures of them are easily found online.

Kilts

The Scottish kilt is an example of a pleated wrap skirt. They consist of a flat front 'apron', with pleats around the sides and rear allowing for mobility, and enabling the garment to flare in spins. Kilts are notable as one of the only remaining 'menswear' skirts in Euro-American culture.

Modern kilts are descended from an earlier draped garment where a large rectangular blanket or cloak was pleated before being wrapped around the body and fastened with a belt. The modern form was developed in the 19th century, adding a waistband and stitching the pleats in place for convenience.

They are traditionally wool and use knife pleats, although modern ones are widely available varying the basic design with other materials, pockets, and various other kinds of pleats.

Kilts are widely used in several forms of Scottish dance, and are not uncommon in contra.

2: Fabric type and weight

The second aspect of skirt design to consider is fabric type and weight. There are two main kinds of fabrics:

Woven fabrics, which have hundreds of threads criss-crossing at 90 degrees,
and knits, which are formed from a single thread forming interlocking loops.

These two kinds of fabric behave quite differently: knitted fabrics tend to have much more flexible drape, which means that they will closely conform to the shape of whatever they are laid over. Knitted fabrics are ‘floppy’, like a t-shirt.

Woven fabrics by comparison are generally more stiff, and if laid over something tend to ‘smooth it out’ according to the rectilinear directions of the weave, draping in large flowing curves that obscure detail — like denim or linen.

Both kinds come in varying weights and thicknesses, and heavier fabrics are more stiff in both cases, but all other things being equal, knits will generally be more flexible.

With regards to skirts:

Heavier fabric will pick up and flare more easily in twirls, while very lightweight flowy fabrics ‘float’, and trail behind the dancer’s movements.
Knitted fabrics have more uniform drape in comparison to woven ones, and will tend to fall in smaller folds / waves.

All of the above can be made from many different kinds of base materials including plant fibres like cotton and linen, animal fur (wool), Silk, which is produced by an insect, or synthetic materials like rayon, polyester, or elastane (spandex / lycra).

All of those materials, in turn, can be produced in different textures and weights which will impact skirt behavior. They will also feel different against your skin—wool can be itchy, synthetics don’t always ‘breathe’ well when you perspire, etc. In our research, a number of people have suggested that linen has a good ‘swoosh’, and others have expressed that elastane-based knits work well, but a lot of these decisions come down to personal preference. Once you’ve found a type of skirt you’re excited about, the best idea is to find some skirts of that kind, wear them, and see if they feel and behave how you like.

There are factors beyond the feel of a skirt that will affect your choice: for example, many people think carefully about the sustainability of the consumer choices they make. With dance skirts, as with any clothes, sustainability is a combination of materials and supply chain. The best options are to buy used skirts (or ‘dead stock’/remaindered fabric, if you make your own), choose skirts you’ll wear a lot rather than buying an excessive number, and educate yourself about materials and how they are produced.

3: Skirt length

Having considered skirt construction from the perspective of fullness and fabric type, we now turn to length. How long do you want your skirt to be? People dance in a range from very short mini skirts to floor length ones, but the most common are knee length to mid calf. Ultimately this comes down to personal preference. What is most fun for you?

Having said that, there are some factors to consider around safety when it comes to skirt length. With very long skirts it is easy to step on the hem and trip, Long skirts made out of lightweight fabrics can also become tangled between your legs, and can also cause problems due to that.

But contra is social dancing, which means that we also need to think about how our choices affect the other dancers in the room. Very long and full skirts can interfere with other dancers, especially a long and heavy circle skirt flying out horizontally and contacting other dancers. A number of people noted having issues with this in tighter spaces in our survey.

Short skirts that flare widely from the waist can expose a lot of the body; if this is a concern for you, consider a different length, layering a short skirt over a longer one, or combining your skirt with shorts, leggings, etc. Skirt length also has an impact on aesthetics, so you may want to make choices based on your style preferences—more on this later.

So, what kind of skirt is best for contra dancing?

We conducted a survey of contra dancers to ask what kinds of skirts they like wearing, and by far the most popular, taking 71 percent of the total, are circle skirts (33%) and light and flowy ones (39%).

Either of these would be a good place to start because they are practically guaranteed to twirl well. Light flowy skirts can refer to a range of things including skirts with large volumes of a very lightweight and sheer fabric like chiffon that ‘float’ in the air, or skirts made from lightweight flexible knits.

You may want to have a few skirts of different fabric weights and lengths to accommodate for different temperatures, as well as other dancers because very long skirts can get in the way or be a tripping hazard in dances with many people in a small space.

The results of our survey suggest that the primary benefit of a skirt to contra dancers is the extent to which it extends, amplifies, and enhances the sensation of the dance – particularly twirls and other flourishes. History bears this out: a more universal adoption of flowing and flaring skirts among contra dancers, regardless of gender, coincided with the explosion of interest in flourishes and improvisational elaboration of the basic dance form among contra dancers at the turn of the 21st century.

But beyond the physical pleasure that comes with wearing a skirt that amplifies movement, there are surely hundreds of other reasons why people across the dance community choose to wear skirts.

Where to find skirts for contra dance

Obviously the kinds of skirts available through mainstream outlets will vary depending on the current fashion, and may or may not include options that are ideal for dancing. Here are some other options:

Charity shops
Dance clothing suppliers
Vintage clothing suppliers
Festival clothing suppliers
Etsy
Ebay

Charity shops can have many different things available and ones in towns with major folk festivals put out 'folky' things while those festivals are on. Charity shops are an excellent place to look for dance skirts because they tick sustainability boxes as well as economic ones. Also, you can usually try the skirt on, which is the most effective way to decide if it’s going to work for you.

Ebay and other online sources may also help you find vintage and handmade clothing. Some Etsy sellers specialise in clothes for contra dancing; this likely means that they have a good sense of what makes a great dance skirt (although their preferences may not be yours). Even if you don’t find dance-specific vendors, some general understanding of construction methods will help you find good skirts. Advantages of buying from an Etsy seller may include the opportunity to select your own fabric(s); and although the price will be higher than a charity shop purchase, if you get precisely the skirt you want you have solved the problem of what to wear for dancing for years — possibly decades.

Remember that you can alter any skirt you find. Some alterations require more skill than others, but if you’re willing to negotiate a needle and thread then it’s straightforward to shorten a hem, for example — and not impossible to add pockets. With the help of a sewing machine and a bit of ambition, you can save time on more substantial alterations. If you are prepared to make adjustments to your skirt, you can tailor it to your own aesthetic and dancing preferences.

Of course, many people make their own skirts. Simple skirts are among the easiest garments to make; most likely the fabric choice will be the trickiest step for first-timers. There are countless guides available online for free, covering the construction of any kind of skirt you could want.

Carrying things on your person

For contra dancers interested in wearing skirts it may be initially frustrating that many (we venture to say most) skirts do not have pockets. There are a few ways of handling this.

There are other options for carrying things on your person: a belt pouch you can fasten around your waist, for example, or a small bag hung securely across the chest. If you only wear a skirt for dancing (in other words, you put it on when you arrive at a dance, and remove it when the dance is over), this may be OK.

On the other hand, many dancers want to wear their skirt for more than just dancing—even if it’s just during the interval—and it is easy to imagine wanting a pocket at that stage.

Happily, it is not difficult to add pockets to a skirt as long as it has at least one side seam, and isn't made of extremely light material. There are many online tutorials; search for, e.g., 'add a side-seam pocket to a skirt'. But do be aware that heavy items like keys in the pocket of a full skirt will fly outward when you twirl and may hurt another dancer.

If you prefer to keep things in your pockets while you dance, you might consider attaching pockets to an internal straight skirt or shorts, as it would keep the pockets close to your body while the skirt flares. Pockets in a separate underskirt or shorts would also be a useful option for chiffon skirts and other very lightweight fabrics. In either case, one could add a slit to the outer skirt to enable pocket access.

Regardless of whether you’re wearing a skirt or not, do think about how the things in your pockets and/or pouches could affect other dancers. For example, if you do a hip to hip swing, having keys or other hard/sharp items in your right-hand pocket will be uncomfortable for the other dancer regardless of whether you’re wearing trousers or a skirt.

What to wear with your skirt

One of the first things you’ll need to be aware of is how high your skirt will come up in a twirl. Full circle skirts will stand straight out from your body if you twirl fast enough, while gathered and godet skirts tend to have a less extreme flare towards the waist, keeping more of your body covered.

In the case of skirts that do flare widely, you may want to wear something with your skirt for modesty reasons:

Shorts, many dancers wear shorts under a skirt for modesty. Many different kinds are worn, ranging from bike shorts, boxer shorts and shorts specifically marketed as dance shorts. Many people wear shorts of various kinds to reduce chafing and thigh rub also.
Slips, shifts, chemises; also half slips or underskirts. These terms all refer to a general category of underskirts and underdresses made of smooth, thin fabric, which can have various lengths, and generally being straighter, can act as a modesty layer.
Leggings / tights. These offer modesty without restricting movement, but could be too warm in some situations.
Finally, layering a shorter skirt with less flare over a longer skirt with more can hold the top of the flaring skirt down, creating a less extreme flare resembling a godet skirt.

It can be important to consider the relationship between your top and your skirt as its length can inhibit the action of the skirt (this might be a useful feature or an unwelcome interference, depending on your goals).

And there are other things you could wear with a skirt that can also have a variety of other practical or visual advantages, for example:

Tights and leggings offer a variety of other benefits (or drawbacks, depending on your situation!), including warmth, moisture wicking, and some leggings come with pockets.
Slips can reduce static (for example, if you’re also wearing tights) and improve the drape of a skirt or dress. Today many people consider them old-fashioned, but they can serve a useful purpose in dance situations.
layering skirts can add dimension, colour, length, and flare. Layering a skirt with more flare over one with less, you can create a peekaboo effect of colour and/or shape.
Dresses can be layered over or under skirts to create similar visual effects to layered skirts.
A petticoat is a many-layered underskirt, sometimes made with stiff fabric, which causes any skirt worn over it to ‘floof’ outwards and stand off the body more. Traditionally popular for square dancing, they’re rarely worn by contra dancers.

Ultimately, every choice you make about what to wear is yours alone; we’re writing this article to offer practical information and advice, not to express moral or aesthetic judgments.

Some thoughts on styling skirts for any gender

Aesthetics are extremely personal, especially when it comes to fashion. We aren’t here to tell you to conform to mainstream trends or alienating body standards — on the contrary, we’re here to help you find clothes that bring you the most dancing joy, regardless of what other people think!

At the same time, if you’re not used to wearing skirts and you do enjoy crafting a personal aesthetic that makes you happy, you might wonder how to find the skirt shape that brings you that joy. Making a skirt look the way you want can require considering more factors than just the skirt in itself.

We can’t possibly address all the factors that go into self-fashioning, so we will focus on visual subdivisions, skirt / top pairing, Silhouette, and colour coordination.

Visual subdivision

There’s an idea in many visual arts called the rule of thirds which is often used to explain why some compositions are broadly visually pleasing across different cultures and historical moments. The rule of thirds can appear in clothing through shape, colour/pattern, and proportion. For example:

For many people, a floor-length skirt worn at the natural waist splits the body visually such that two-thirds vertically are the skirt, and one third is the torso.
A knee-length skirt often splits the body roughly equally into 3 sections.

Many people like the appearance of things split into simple uneven mathematical ratios, whether it’s the ‘rule of thirds’ or the ‘rule of fifths’, and you may find these ideas helpful in creating outfits that look visually balanced.

Skirt and top pairing

Skirts are frequently worn at the natural waist (the narrowest part of the torso). In Euro-American fashion this is considered 'high waisted' and this can create visual conflict when combined with normal length tops. To me (Robert), a normal t-shirt can look odd if not tucked in. But fashion also plays a part! To me (Louise), a t-shirt looks more odd tucked in than left out, because the latter was the fashion I grew up with and irrationally cling to!

Yet another person might have strong feelings about comfort taking priority over aesthetics—or may experience a somatic empathy that makes comfort an aesthetic as well as experiential choice. We aren’t going to tell you what looks good; we’re just going to point out elements of choice that you might want to take into consideration as you find the aesthetic that works for you.

After you’ve given some thought to length, consider fittedness. Your choice of top can range from very loose/flowing to very fitted/tight:

Do you prefer contrast? Pick a tightly-fitted top with a flowing skirt.
Do you prefer a unified silhouette? If you pair a loose shirt with that same skirt, you can create a single line from shoulder to hem.
If you like a lot of punctuation in your silhouette, you might pair a boxy, cropped top with a low-rise skirt so that there’s a stripe of bare skin (or fitted undershirt layer, or…) visible.

The possibilities aren’t quite endless, but they vary a lot!

The article 'Fitted tops' from everybodyskirts.com discusses these issues (note: gendered language associated with a specific subset of bodies).

Silhouette

One’s silhouette can be thought of like the ‘outline’ of the shape formed by taking a picture and colouring your whole body in a single tone.

Skirts can interact with one’s silhouette in different ways depending on body shape. For example:

You may notice that on wide-hipped individuals, a floor length a-line skirt results in a silhouette where the waist down to the ground forms a single ‘cone’. Depending on shoulder width, chest and waist size, and the style of top chosen, the skirt could create a cone all the way from the shoulders down to the ground.
When a person has wide shoulders going to a narrower waist, the flare of a skirt creates a ‘corner’ in the middle of the body. If the person’s hips are wide, and they choose a fitted top, they will create an hourglass-shaped silhouette. If they choose a loose top that hangs to their hips, they can eliminate the ‘corner’ or indent in their silhouette. If they have narrow hips and choose a fitted skirt, they could create an inverted cone that is widest at the shoulders and narrows at the knees.

If your aesthetic goal is visual balance, aiming to smooth out the lines of the silhouette can be helpful. For example, a top and/or skirt may look more balanced when the length of the hem aligns sympathetically with places where body curves change direction. The author of the following video suggests setting the length of a skirt to align with the widest points on the wearer’s legs, where the curves naturally change direction:

Video: an ode to circle skirts - Katerina Ivanova.

It is very easy to find references for skirt silhouettes that work for the fashion industry’s idea of the ideal feminine body. But what about other genders and body shapes?

Some of the same rules apply: in the following video, the model uses a tank top to narrow the shoulders so that they are similar in width, visually, to the waist and hips. The gentle flare of the skirt, which falls just below the knee, creates a simple A-line silhouette. Pairing the skirt with heavy boots widens the calves, ankles, and feet to vertically balance the upper body.

A video demonstration of styling a skirt on a masculine body.

The Japanese ‘hakama’ provides a useful reference for a skirt silhouette on a body with wide shoulders but a less pronounced difference between waist and hip circumference. While hakama are technically very wide leg trousers, their silhouette resembles a skirt, and overall forms a 'bow tie' silhouette, with the wider shoulders coming down to a narrower waist, and flaring out again.

Skirted silhouettes across a wide range of body types remains a largely unexplored area, though.

Silhouettes are something that people have been experimenting with in clothing for hundreds of years, and there are no inherently feminine or masculine ones. For instance in the 1920s, there was a fashion for straight feminine silhouettes, and for much of the Victorian era their preference for masculine frock coats was distinctly ‘curvy’.

Colour coordination

In case you're interested in wearing brightly coloured clothing, a bit more conscientiousness of colour coordination can be needed so that things blend together as a whole. Basic knowledge of colour theory goes a long way.

The colour wheel is a useful tool for finding colours that fit well together. A traditional colour wheel places the 3 primary colours, red, yellow and blue, equally in thirds around a circle, and then blends the boundaries between them to produce the secondary colours: orange, green, and purple. Here is an example of a traditional colour wheel:

Note that their are also other colour models, and on a computer you often see a CMYK color and tint wheel, like this one, where cyan, magenta, and yellow are the ‘primary’ colours, and black is used to shade the hue created. The traditional colour wheel is what most use for colour choice.

When it comes to combining colours to create a colour scheme, common approaches are to:

Use different shades of the same colour, such as a light, medium and dark green, which is called a monochrome colour theme.
Using analogous colours, which are colours that are close to each other on the traditional colour wheel.
Using colours from opposite sides of the traditional colour wheel, called complementary colours.
Choosing a bright colour and contrasting it with black, white, or grey which can go with anything.

One way of applying these is to split colours between the top and bottom of an outfit, or to go with a majority base colour, and add small amounts of a contrasting complementary colour in belts, scarves and such.

Another option if your skirt or top already has a pattern with multiple colours is to choose one of the colours, and use this as a solid colour in the other part of your outfit.

There is a lot more that can be said about colour coordination and there are many resources about it online. Or you could just do what many dancers do, ignoring these ideas completely and wear ‘all the colours’.

Finding the confidence to wear a skirt as a male dancer.

Although the advice we have given so far has done its best to be gender-neutral, there is no denying the fact that in contemporary Euro-American culture, skirt-wearing is aligned with femininity. Given these cultural facts, it can feel uncomfortable to step out for the first time wearing a skirt as a male or masculine-presenting dancer.

For this reason, some dancers choose to change into a skirt once they arrive at a dance, but rest assured that people in the contra dancing community are not going to pass judgement! We know that twirling in a skirt is fun for everyone. And we would love it if skirts became accepted as an option for everyone in other parts of life, too.

If you’re uncertain about how to get started with wearing skirts, either at a dance or in general, you may find some of the following thoughts helpful:

You might find it comfortable to start with a kilt, as the Scottish kilt is a male skirt with a long cultural history, and they are well suited to (and widely used in) many kinds of folk dance. Few people will comment negatively about a person in a kilt in any context.
Depending where you are, you may find that most everyone is already dancing in skirts, and may feel like the odd one out for not wearing one!
If masculine skirt wearing is less common in your local dance, see if you can organise an ‘everyone in skirts’ dance with your contra group.
It can help to just say ‘screw it’, don a skirt and see what happens. This is called ‘flooding’ in exposure therapy, and the feeling of unease tends to go away pretty fast.
Some contra dance groups have a ‘library’ of skirts available for dancers to borrow, reducing the barrier to entry, and enabling experimentation with different styles. Why not create a skirt library at your local dance?

Closing notes

Hopefully these points have given you enough background about the things that make a good dance skirt, and enables you to find some that you enjoy. Go to some dances and watch the other dancers, and something will peak your interest, 'that looks like fun'.

When that happens, feel free to try it yourself regardless of gender. Generally, feel free to wear whatever enhances your experience, as dancing is ultimately something we do for fun.