Hobble skirt

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A hobble skirt is a skirt with a narrow enough hem to significantly impede the wearer's stride, thus earning its name. Though restrictive skirts first appeared in Western fashion in the 1880s, the term is typically used in reference to a short-lived trend of narrow ankle-length skirts in the early 1910s, made popular by designer Paul Poiret. Poiret is sometimes said to have been inspired by Mrs. Hart O. Berg, who became the first American woman to ride in an airplane, when she joined Wilbur Wright in late 1908. Mrs. Berg used a piece of rope to tie her skirt around her legs in order to keep it from flapping while in flight, and supposedly Poiret saw her mincing away from the plane with the rope still tied.

The more likely inspiration for the skirt was the narrow robe of the Japanese Geisha; Poiret was strongly influenced by the Orient as was another Edwardian trendsetter, Russian Ballet costumer Leon Bakst. The original trend, despite its impractibility, was far-reaching and fairly long-lasting. The extremes of the fad were not indulged in much after 1910, the year it was launched by Poiret, but until 1914-1915 modified forms of the "hobble" –– made with slits, hidden pleats, or drapery –– were the height of fashion. Leading women designers of the day, such as "Lucile," (Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon), and Madame Jeanne Paquin were generally opposed to the severe versions of the "hobble" and their influence had much to do with toning down the style.

These tapered skirts were responsible for numerous accidents which were widely reported in the press; women fell down steps, tripped while crossing streets, and injured themselves when getting in and out of automobiles. Trolleys in New York in 1912 were even made with lower boarding steps to accommodate the restricting fashion, railroad stations provided special steps for women to board cars, and as far away as Dallas, Texas, city officials considered lowering the level of sidewalks for the convenience and safety of hobble-skirted pedestrians. Hobble skirts are even believed to have inspired the shape of the classic Coca-Cola bottle, produced circa 1915.

Long tight skirts would reappear through the century in various forms among women's fashions, particularly among evening gowns, and inspire the pencil skirt, a shorter version of the hobble skirt that became popular in the late 1950s, introduced by Christian Dior.

Since at least the mid-20th century, hobble skirts became a mainstay in bondage-oriented fetish fashion, often made out of leather, PVC, or latex. For example, they were a regular topic in the 1950s John Willie fetish magazine, Bizarre.