Showgirl Skirt
This is a skirt that wraps only partly around a lady's waist, thus making a crescent instead of a full circle.
While a regular skirt is designed to cover up the legs, and slit and wrap skirts cover the legs unless the lady moves right, this kind of skirt doesn't really cover the legs (unless you look at it from the right angle). The point is actually to frame and showcase the legs.
It should also be noted this trope could work with a simple dress or a Pimped-Out Dress.
Florenz Zeigfeld is probably partially responsible for developing this style with his Zeigfeld Follies showgirls "glorifying the American girl" from the late 19th C and early 20th C.
The key to telling if a skirt like this is to look at the waist. The skirt has to wrap between 1/3 to 3/4 of the way around the waist to count. Anything less or more doesn't count (like Leia's slave girl outfit).
Usually a Sub-Trope of Impractically Fancy Outfit, and almost always a kind of Fan Service.
Compare Bare Your Midriff, She's Got Legs.
Contrast All-Encompassing Mantle.
Examples of Showgirl Skirt include:
Anime and Manga
- Ken Akamatsu really likes this, going by the number of crescent-shaped skirts he throws into the costumes of the girls in Mahou Sensei Negima
- Umi and Alcyone in Magic Knight Rayearth.
- Signum's Barrier Jacket in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
- Misty's magician's assistant outfit in Pokémon.
- Mew Lettuce in Tokyo Mew Mew.
- Also Ringo, in the game.
- Glenda wore one in a fantasy sequence in Petite Princess Yucie.
- One of Cardcaptor Sakura's costumes has this.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Magician Girl's little pink skirt is a bit like this.
- Hagall has one in Ah! My Goddess.
- The Princess of the Crystal, aka Himari's possessor, in Mawaru Penguindrum has one of these on her Pimped-Out Dress. It's also the first part of it to go as she makes her speech Once an Episode.
Film
- Satine's "Pink Diamonds" dress in Moulin Rouge has a skirt of pink feathers.
- Miss Kitty the Showgirl Mouse in The Great Mouse Detective wears one of these during the "Let Me Be Good to You" musical number... in an animated Disney movie, no less.
- The Grand Councilwoman from Lilo and Stitch.
- In White Christmas, Judy wears a detachable one for the "Mandy" number.
Live Action TV
- Often worn in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Shows, including one Tyra Banks wore that was trimmed with white fox.
- Centauri female court dress in Babylon 5.
- Kahlan's supposedly practical traveling clothes in Legend of the Seeker.
Music Videos
- The wedding dress in the music video for Guns N' Roses' "November Rain".
- Some of [dead link] the outfits that Kylie Minogue wore in her "Showgirl" concert.
Theater
- Takarazuka productions often have this.
Toys
- The "Ready In Red" outfit for She-Ra from She-Ra: Princess of Power lets her wear her cape like this.
Video Games
- The fairy familiar in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
- Many outfits in Ragnarok Online. In fact, a lot of MMORPGs seem to have this for some class outfits for ladies.
- Everquest 2, while normally avoiding the women wear skimpy clothes cliche of MMORPGs, offers one of these skirts to female characters as a prestige item.
- All over the place in the designs for Dissidia Final Fantasy—and they're all male, to boot: Warrior Of Light, The Emperor, Onion Knight, Squall Leonhart, Sephiroth, Kuja, and even Jecht. Most of them are at least wearing pants as well - unfortunately (or fortunately), that doesn't include Kuja.
- Final Fantasy X-2 has the Gunner Class/Job/Dresssphere which features this. It's also Yuna's default outfit.
- It also appears in Dissidia Duodecil Final Fantasy.
- Vanille in Final Fantasy XIII wears a brown fur version. It's a hunting trophy.
- Lightning's new outfit in Final Fantasy XIII-2 has a skirt of Fluffy Fashion Feathers.
- Maria Traydor of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time wears one of these, although the effect is closer to a Badass Longcoat.
- The RAcaseal class (android gunner girls) from Phantasy Star Online has one of these skirts, made from decoratively dangling metal plates. It's also cut in a way that combines this with Mini-Dress of Power.
- Most of the waist options for armor in Neverwinter Nights work out to these.
- Dawn Star in Jade Empire has a perfectly sensible shirt...and then her clothing below the waist consists of underwear and four evenly spaced wide ribbons that flutter behind her when she is running.
- Neo Metal Sonic wears one in Sonic Heroes, though it's probably meant to be a cape attached at the waist rather than the shoulders.
- Saika Magoichi of Sengoku Basara 3, who wears trousers underneath, so it's probably just for dramatic effect.
- Mesmers in Guild Wars are especially in love with this trope. Close to half of the female Mesmer armor sets consist of what would be an ankle-length, A-line dress or coat were it not cut to reveal a miniskirt beneath and show almost the entire leg. Elementalists and Necromancers also partake liberally of this trope (with Elementalist Elite Luxon armor being particularly notable).
- Some of Cassandra's costumes in Soul Calibur have this.
- Milly of Baten Kaitos Origins.
- Judith of Tales of Vesperia.
- The showgirl in Bloody Good Time.
- Umineko no Naku Koro ni has nearly every female demon and furniture wear a Showgirl Skirt. And one trap.
Web Original
- From the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, the Bone White Queen, the Anthropomorphic Personification of Disease and the consort of the Blood Red King, wears a (naturally) bone-white Showgirl Skirt as part of her costume.
Western Animation
- ReBoot: Hexadecimal trades her cape for one of these when she assumes her Sprite form in Season 4.
- Shows up in, of all places, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic when Pinkie Pie puts on a show for the Buffalo and the Appleloosan homesteaders in "Over a Barrel". The characters weren't too impressed with her cutesy song about sharing and understanding, but fan reaction to Pinkie's dance hall girl outfit was predictable.
- In Transformers, any female Transformer will have her kibble become this while in robot mode.
Real Life
- Named for Vegas Showgirls, who often wear this skirt.
- This picture of Marilyn Monroe. It's just not as obvious unless you can tear your eyes away from the Fur Bikini.
- Child pageants will even have this, among other questionable costumes.
- If anyone has ever seen Northmead High School perform at Rock Eisteddfod...
- At least ⅔ of the female performers/background-singers at 2010's Eurovision Song Contest wore these.
