Prairie dress

Origins in the 19th century

Prairie skirts are so-called after their resemblance to the home-sewn skirts worn by pioneer women in the mid-19th century, which in turn are a simplified version of the flared, ruffled skirts characteristic of high-fashion dresses of the 1820s. The style originated as an adaptation of high fashion to the practicalities of rural life in the Western United States. Deep colors and prints were used as they did not show dirt, while decorations were used to update clothing to changing fashions.

Revival in the 1960s and 1970s

Counterculture Hippies rejecting mainstream fashion looking instead to historical and non-Western styles. While 19th century prairie clothing was usually homemade, new companies such as Gunne Sax in San Francisco began manufacturing ready to wear prairie clothing. The style grew in popularity in the 1970s with the approach of the United States Bicentennial and was introduced to high fashion by Ralph Lauren in his fall 1978 Western-themed collection.

Mid-calf length, button-front denim prairie skirts with a single flounce, worn with a 1950s-style petticoat that was slightly longer than the skirt, became a mainstream fashion in the 1970s and early 1980s following Lauren's introduction.

Blue-prairie-dress.jpg|Late 1970s prairie dress Blue-prairie-dress-closeup.jpg|Collar of a 1970s prairie dress, showing common parts of the style such as lace, buttons, floral fabric, and ruffles. Brown-and-pink-prairie-dresses.jpg|1970s prairie dresses

21st century

Prairie dresses were a fashion trend in the late 2010s, and were part of the cottagecore trend in 2020.

Prairie dresses are often worn by women who attend Christian churches that emphasize the practice of plain dress (as with the Bruderhof Communities, an Anabaptist denomination) or the doctrine of outward holiness (as with the Evangelical Wesleyan Church, a Methodist connexion in the holiness movement).

Notes

References

• George-Warren, Holly, and Michelle Freedman: How the West Was Worn, Harry N. Abrams (2001), .

References

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3. (10 October 2019). "Women in Fundamentalism: Modesty, Marriage, and Motherhood". Rowman & Littlefield.
4. (11 June 2018). "Seventh-Day Adventists, Ellen G. White, and Salvation". Christian Faith Publishing.
5. (23 November 2015). "Clothing and Fashion: American Fashion from Head to Toe [4 volumes]: American Fashion from Head to Toe". ABC-CLIO.
6. (2013). "The Fairchild Books dictionary of fashion".
7. "Sutter's Fort Clothing - 1840s". California State Parks.
8. (2001). "How the West Was Worn". Harry N. Abrams, Inc..
9. (8 May 2020). "Why Cottagecore and Prairie Dressing Are Fashion's Biggest Trends in 2020". Teen Vogue.