The authentic and timeless world of Ralph Lauren
August 2025
RL/Women

The legacy of the white skirt

The maxiskirt is everywhere this summer. Ralph’s take on the perennial piece has a lot to do with it
By Shannon Adducci
No matter where you are right now, it’s highly likely you’ve had a recent encounter with the long white skirt. Maybe it’s crisp and structured, worn with a strapless top and kitten heel thong sandals. Or it could be tiered and swishy, a rumpled eyelet paired with soft crochet pieces and a barefoot state of mind. No matter the details, the white maxiskirt has without a doubt become the universal garment of the summer. This is not new. As it turns out, the long cotton skirt has been integral to women’s fashion for centuries. And its role in Mr. Lauren’s world has not only helped to define the Ralph Lauren look; it’s also built upon the garment’s historical legacy, adding a new chapter to it with a distinctive point of view.
ANTIQUE ROMANCE
Victorian-inspired lace details on a layered white skirt from the Spring 2002 Collection; a tiered-and-embroidered lace skirt from Spring 2006.
When Mr. Lauren introduced it as a key piece of his first Western-focused collection for the Fall 1978 season, the long skirt came with a, well, long list of connotations. To the designer, it referenced not the flowing peace-and-love garments that defined the hippie movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s but the romanticism of the 19th-century prairie woman, whose layers of delicate eyelet petticoats provided an exquisite and unlikely contrast to the harsh realities of pioneer life. It also tapped into the fragile elegance of Victorian-era lacework, the new look of skirt separates from the Edwardian era and its sporty Gibson Girl, and all of the gossamer undergarments that came even before that. It was pastoral and rustic but also curiously well-adapted to city life. “Reminiscence and old lace form the Ralph Lauren Fall 1978 Collection,” reads the brand’s press release following the collection’s runway show, which was held April 20 of that year, at the St. Regis on East 55th Street in Manhattan. “A prairie skirt in flannel with pristine white lace Victorian blouse is topped by black cavalry twill Western jacket, which is tipped in leather.”
THE BIRTH OF BOHO-CHIC
A ruffled tulle skirt and beaded tank (left) and silk georgette under a tweed overcoat, both all-white looks shown backstage at the Spring 2005 Collection Runway Show.
That initial collection focused squarely on the prairie silhouette: a long skirt with a very subtle A-line shape and a similarly subtle ruffle on the hem. It was shown in heavier flannels, plaids, suedes, and stiff, dark cottons, apropos of the season. Versions in white fabrics and embellishments would come later; primarily in the early ’80s (styled with white socks and moccasins for a preppy-prairie vibe), and then again in the early 2000s, when the all-white ensemble became a mainstay of Mr. Lauren’s aesthetic—particularly as he came to define the look and feel of what we now know as Hamptons style. It was the Spring 2002 women’s Collection that solidified the look of the long white skirt for the 21st century. The Collection focused once again on the romance of the American West, using (almost exclusively) shades of pearl, ivory, alabaster, sand, and salt for bias-cut slips, tea dresses, tiered gowns, and, yes, long white skirts, all to contrast with the caramel brown leather belts and Western boots that provided the rusticity. The finishings were delicate: tiered tea linens, fine embroidery, fringed shawls, and tattered handkerchief hemlines. The Collection—and specifically its white skirts—was integral to defining the boho-chic look that would dominate the early 2000s.
Fast-forward to this summer, and the look is an amalgamation of the past; at once bohemian, romantic, prairie, Western, Victorian, preppy, even sporty. Polo’s version leans into the romance of eyelet embroidery, done as a cotton voile in a tiered silhouette with a scalloped hem, pintucking, crochet lace trim, and a shirred elasticized waist that makes it an agile beach vacation piece. Two white skirts define the Collection look: The Malti maxi hints back to the prairie skirt, with a mesh lace fabric underlayer and alternating panels of sheer cotton-and-silk voile, tulle, and hand-embroidered lace, a delicate mixture reminiscent of antique petticoats. The Trivelas skirt, meanwhile, looks like a straightforward cotton voile piece with a classic A-line shape and a midi hemline. Upon closer inspection, the skirt shows its “soleil” technique, in which six specialized technicians in Italy meticulously fold the fabric to create a pleated effect, then applying a total of 280,000 shimmering white sequins to the bottom of the skirt. It is the skirt that Sienna Miller (the original boho-luxe girl of the 2000s) wore to Wimbledon this year, and further proof that the white skirt goes anywhere and everywhere.

The Collection Trivelas Embellished White Skirt

The Collection Malti Embroidered White Maxiskirt

Hallie Cotton Jersey T-Shirt
350,00 €
Suede Cast Concho Belt
2.300,00 € 805,00 €
Chilton 40 mm Calf-Suede Cowboy Boot
1.200,00 €

Polo’s Vacation-Ready Cotton Voile White Skirt

O-Ring Leather Sandal
295,00 €
SHANNON ADDUCCI is a writer and fashion editor based in New York. Her work has appeared in Elle, GQ, Departures, Robb Report, WWD, and T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
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