Prairie dress

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). ==See also==