Petticoat
A petticoat or underskirt is an article of clothing, a type of undergarment worn under a skirt or a dress. Its precise meaning varies over centuries and between countries.
For the modern undergarment sometimes called a "petticoat", see half slip.According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in current British English, a petticoat is "a light loose undergarment ... hanging from the shoulders or waist". In modern American usage, "petticoat" refers only to a garment hanging from the waist. They are most often made of cotton, silk or tulle. Without petticoats, skirts of the 1850s would not have the volume they were known for.[1] In historical contexts (16th to mid-19th centuries), petticoat refers to any separate skirt worn with a gown, bedgown, bodice or jacket; these petticoats are not, strictly speaking, underwear, as they were made to be seen. In both historical and modern contexts, petticoat refers to skirt-like undergarments worn for warmth or to give the skirt or dress the desired attractive shape.
Terminology[edit]
Sometimes a petticoat may be called a waist slip or underskirt (UK) or half slip (US), with petticoat restricted to extremely full garments. A chemise hangs from the shoulders. Petticoat can also refer to a full-length slip in the UK,[2] although this usage is somewhat old-fashioned.
Non-Western petticoats[edit]
Compared to the Western petticoat, South Asian petticoats are rarely shorter than ankle length and are always worn from the waist down. They may also be called inner skirts[24] or inskirts.
In Japan, similar to a petticoat, a nagajuban (commonly referred to simply as a juban; a hadajuban is sometimes worn underneath a nagajuban) are worn under the kimono as a form of underwear similar in function to the petticoat. The juban resembles a shorter kimono, typically without two half-size front panels (the okumi) and with sleeves only marginally sewn up along the wrist-end. Juban are commonly made of white silk, though historically were typically made of red silk; as the collar of the juban shows underneath the kimono and is worn against the skin, a half-collar (a han'eri) is often sewn to the collar as a protector, and also for decoration. The hadajuban is sometimes worn underneath the juban, and resembles a tube-sleeved kimono-shaped top, without a collar, and an accompanying skirt slip.