Outskirt: The skirt as a queer object

Abstract

The queer thought supports identities that blur the boundaries between social categories, blending them through different hybrids. In this article, the queer involvement with the subject world is projected on the world of objects, focusing on clothing objects. Unlike the tight, western wardrobe organized in an upright logic, the skirt is an object with diverse, free and hybrid possibilities for cultural definition, calling upon a discussion for identity aspects. These are embodied in the possibilities for identity performance while presenting protection and concealment or as self-expression and exposure. In this article, the view on the skirt is paused, creating de-automatization in its regard; the article examines the skirt’s material qualities using ‘anthropology of the object’, in which the material aspects are examined while considering its history understanding its sociological and cultural role. The article claims that the skirt’s changing, contradictory and fluid characterizations mark it as a different, unusual dress in the modern wardrobe array. Therefore, it is a free and ‘other’ factor, the wardrobe’s queer. The article states that it is an object containing diverse, free and hybrid possibilities for cultural definition, gender fluidity and the ability to undermine the binary division of wearable objects.