Clothing Definitions — definitions of garments and clothing terms from Apparel Search
A pleated skirt is a skirt built from folds: the fabric is pleated — folded in a regular pattern — so that it lies flat at the waist or hip and releases fullness toward the hem. This page defines the pleated skirt and its main pleat types — knife, box, accordion and sunburst — and traces the style from Mariano Fortuny's permanently pleated silk to the school uniform and the tennis court.
A pleated skirt is a skirt in which the fabric is arranged in pleats: regular folds that are pressed flat, held by stitching for part of their length, or left free. Pleating solves the skirt-maker's basic problem — a wide hem needs more fabric than a narrow waist — by folding the extra fabric away at the top and letting it open as the skirt moves. The folds give the skirt its characteristic striped play of light and shade, the same effect seen at large scale in the hoop skirt era's fluted skirts.
The pleat types have standard names. In a knife-pleated skirt every fold faces the same direction, like the blades of a closing fan. Box pleats fold away from each other in pairs, making a flat, raised ridge. Inverted pleats fold toward each other, hiding the fold inside. Accordion pleats are narrow, sharp and evenly spaced for the skirt's full length, and sunburst pleats radiate from the waist — narrow at the top, wide at the hem — following the flare of the circle skirt they are usually cut into. Heat-set synthetic fabrics hold their pleats permanently; pleats in wool and silk are pressed in and soften with wear.
Fine permanent pleating in silk was made famous by Mariano Fortuny, whose Delphos gown, from 1909, used a pleating process that has never been fully replicated. In the twentieth century the pleated skirt also became institutional: the pleated back of the kilt, the school uniform skirt, and the short pleated skirts of cheerleading and tennis. Fashion revives it in waves — 1940s day dress ...[truncated 8603 chars]es to the metallic pleated midi skirts of the 2010s.
A pleated skirt is two garments in one: at rest the folds lie closed and the skirt reads as a neat column of stripes; in motion the pleats open like a fan and the hem swings wide. Stitched-down pleats, sewn through the hip and released below, keep the top of the skirt smooth on the body while the lower half moves — the standard school and uniform construction. Care decides how long the effect lasts: pleats in polyester can be washed and hung without pressing, while wool and silk pleats are re-pressed along their original folds, and a pleated skirt is stored hanging by its waistband, never folded.
A skirt whose fabric is folded into regular pleats, flat at the waist and releasing fullness toward the hem, giving movement and a play of light across the folds.
Knife pleats (all folds one way), box pleats (folds facing away in pairs), inverted pleats (folds meeting), accordion pleats (narrow and sharp throughout) and sunburst pleats (radiating from the waist).
In heat-set synthetic fabrics, yes — the folds are set during manufacture. In natural fibres the pleats are pressed in and gradually soften with wear and washing unless re-pressed.