Talk:Ra-ra skirt

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Image:A-ra.jpg seems to have good old-fashioned 19th-century type "flounces"; not sure this was a favorite cheerleader style (I remember vertical pleats...) -- AnonMoos 22:00, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

That's unquestionably what a ra-ra skirt is supposed to look like, as a Google image search will confirm. Indeed, the existing photo shows fairly similar skirts, not ones with vertical pleats. Cheerleaders wear all sorts of things, and the photo on our article shows plain skirts with neither flounces nor pleats.--Ropeuser 09:50, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Nowadays, cheerleaders often wear hotpants, as I noted.--Speedoslover 18:13, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
However, the article mentions 1965, and I have my doubts as to whether that's what cheerleaders very commonly wore in the United States in 1965... AnonMoos 07:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rah-rah_skirt gives photo http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VUUCheerleaders.jpg as an example of "Rah-rah skirts", but they seem to be much more pleated than flounced... AnonMoos 08:46, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, you can't expect Wikipedia to get things right!--Speedoslover 10:10, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't know what the correct definition of a "ra(h)-ra(h) skirt" is, but I do have a pretty clear idea that cheerleaders ca. 1965 tended to wear pleats more often than flounces (which is the only reason I edited this talk page in the first place...). AnonMoos 20:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

[One ransack of local libraries and the Internet later] The unabridged Oxford dictionary says
rah-rah skirt n. (also ra-ra skirt) chiefly Brit. and Austral. a short skirt with layered frills.

This was first recorded in 1965, as I said. Another Oxford dictionary has "a style of short skirt with many layers, sometimes worn by cheerleaders" [1]. So it's clear that it's not a pleated skirt. And I don't know how reliable this site is, but it says "These above-the-knee skirts are called Ra-Ra, because they were derived from the skirts cheerleaders wore", and you can see the photos for yourself. I hope that closes this discussion!--Speedoslover 22:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, that certainly clarifies one thing -- that the term probably originated in Britain or Australia. I was under the impression that the British, at least, in 1965 were much less into the whole female cheerleading thing than Americans, but I have no idea what such cheerleaders as did happen to exist in Britain or Australia in 1965 might have worn... AnonMoos 16:46, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
P.S. Don't really want to discuss the issue further, but stumbled across this just today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-14851225 -- AnonMoos 14:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
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