Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Skirts in the Navy



This is about skirts, actually:

Women serving in the United States Navy are no longer required to wear skirts as part of their uniform, due to changes to the Navy's uniform dress code issued earlier this month. Previously, women were required to wear skirts for formal events, as well as pack them for sea duty. The changes affect the more than 54,000 women in the Navy, and were recommended after 40,000 sailors were surveyed, the Associated Press reports.


The Navy is regarded as a path-breaker in this sense. What's even more exciting is that the new code allows women to run:

All skirts that are part of the Navy uniform will now also have kick pleats, allowing the wearer to break out into a run.


Imagine someone wearing the previous types of skirts trying to run after a terrorist! Or away from one. Sometimes I think that our priorites are a little upside down.

Kick pleats, by the way, are one of the most interesting sewing projects. Their design requires the use of intricate spatial thinking. I once made a skirt with a beautiful kick pleat. The pleat worked perfectly, I could make it flare out with a tiny flamenco style kick. But the waist line of the skirt was far too large for me so the whole construct fell to the floor after the kick. I still have the skirt if anybody needs one like that.