The clever invention that made mini skirts wearable

It’s 2024 and mini skirts are at their shortest since Christina Aguilera’s scandalous Dirrty music video. The hem has inched up and the waistband has moved down, leaving very little fabric in between. The result is an even more impractical garment – one you can neither bend over nor sit down in comfortably, let alone chill in by the lake. Fortunately, skorts have also been making a comeback in recent years.

A mini skirt, but wearable

As implied in the name, a skort is a skirt with built-in shorts. I had let skorts go back in early 2010, so I was sceptical about its renewed rise over the last few seasons. But by this spring, I had to admit it: skorts have won me over.

Skorts now come in tons of pretty designs and have cured my love-hate relationship with mini skirts. The «shorts» part gives the mini skirt all the features I want: comfort, coverage and freedom of movement.

Designs with hidden shorts

A game changer for me is the fact that skorts are now often designed to keep the shorts barely visible – except in situations where you’d be flashing the world. I much prefer to flash the world with shorts than my underwear. Not so long ago, the shorts in skorts were used as a statement piece; from the front, the skort would look like a regular skirt. But at the back, it would transform into shorts. The fact that skorts are now keeping the skirt look all around is making them much more mainstream.

Ultra-skimpy skirts just about forced the skort comeback. But there’s another noughties revival that likely also played a significant role: the dress-over-pants look. For a few seasons now, the combo of dress and pants has been no rarity. So, it stands to reason that the skort aesthetic is also back in the black.

Roots in tennis

The current focus in fashion on functionality and comfort also plays an important role. It gave rise to long-lasting trends such as athleisure wear and gorpcore, which in turn fostered smaller movements such as balletcore and tenniscore.

In fact, skorts originated from tennis. One of the earliest skorts fans was Lilí Álvarez, a Spanish tennis champion, author and feminist who grew up in Switzerland. She competed in the 1931 Wimbledon tournament in a divided skirt designed by the iconic Elsa Schiaparelli. At the time, long skirts were standard in women’s tennis. Lilí Álvarez’s skort-like culottes, which reached just above the knees, caused quite a stir.

These days, skorts hardly cause any uproar. But the comfort they offer both in everyday life and during competitions remains unchanged.