Does the noughties skirt-over-trousers look deserve a second chance?

Some who embraced the skirt-over-trousers trend in the early 2000s still shudder at the memory. I have flashbacks of striding confidently into my sixth-form common room in the early 2000s sporting a slightly shiny pair of high street “skousers”, as they were called. “We looked so terrible,” a designer friend grimaces when I tell her the trend returned in force to the runways for autumn/winter 2023, seen at Daniel Lee’s Burberry debut, Kim Jones’s Fendi, Christopher Kane and Givenchy.

There were various problems with the noughties look, which often involved a random frock over boot-cut jeans, cheap fabrics and little consideration of silhouette. Many of the catwalk versions we have recently seen are cut from an entirely different cloth. Jones sent 12 iterations of beautifully tailored trousers with mid-thigh kilts down the runway for his AW23 show, ranging in tone from office-appropriate greys and blacks to a hot-pink number. “I like the fact that the look is both feminine and utilitarian,” Jones says.

Lee offered a tartan skirt with matching trousers in his debut AW23 collection, and London-based womenswear designer Johanna Parv’s SS23 collection included utilitarian dresses and skirts with built-in cycling shorts or leggings for cycling around town. As someone who happily spends all day in athleisure, I would wear those.

Gen Z has wholeheartedly embraced the style: videos of “Skirt Over Trousers” on TikTok have had 2.5bn views, with another 8.2mn for “Skirt Over Pants”. Celebrities including Bella Hadid and Dua Lipa have both sported the style.

But unlike some Y2K trends, this look isn’t just for those in their twenties. The 40-year-old actress Rebecca Hall wore a chic all-black ensemble to last year’s Cannes Film Festival, while stylist and co-founder of Collagerie, 64-year-old Lucinda Chambers, says the style has long been a favourite of hers. “I’ve always been partial to wearing a dress over a pair of trousers,” she says. “I’ve never dressed in a very girly style, so this is a way for me to wear dresses in my own kind of boyish way.”

Canadian designer Paolina Russo, whose eponymous knitwear label embodies a love of her teenage fashion choices, says she is bored of the mockery and is excited to see the trend return. “I grew up seeing this style on the Disney Channel with the 2000s pop stars layering trousers with skirts and it’s really fun to see it having a resurgence, and actually feeling cool again,” she says.

While you can buy all-in-one “skousers”, such as a wide-legged suit-fabric trouser by Acne Studios with a subtle and flattering asymmetric wrap of fabric at the waist, or Alexander McQueen’s evening wool trousers with an elegant flourish of fabric skirt down one leg, this aesthetic can be styled from your existing wardrobe for a more nonchalant approach. As London-based French designer Lucile Guilmard says, “it’s a real statement of owning your personal style and not being afraid of mixing things that are supposed to exist on their own. It gives off total warrior vibes.”

This is the heart of the appeal — and has got me rooting through my wardrobe experimenting with a look I never thought I’d revisit. While a 12-year-old wool Nicole Farhi midi skirt, tights and boots feels boring, pairing the skirt with slimline trousers and chunky Grensons adds edge. As New York-based model and brand consultant Imani Randolph says, the style is “another method of layering which creates a more interesting silhouette. I typically layer skirts and pants that are the same or a similar colour; both pieces sort of meld into one.”

Chambers recommends picking out “a pair of flat-front trousers without pleats or belt loops so the dress or skirt can slide easily on top without running interference”. She loves kilts over trousers: “The pleats kick out, you can drop the waist low and have the waistband showing.”

Of course, for many women this way of dressing is not a trend. “For the majority of Muslim women, this is a conscious way of dressing for modesty,” says modest-fashion blogger and stylist Alexandra Golovkova. “I like to wear skirts over trousers as it adds a layer for modesty purposes and gives more room for creativity and styling.”

It’s also not just for women; both Peter Do and Thom Browne have dabbled with kilts over trousers for their menswear shows. As has Christian Allaire, a Vogue fashion writer based in Brooklyn. “I like it because it makes the idea of wearing a skirt — something that we’ve seen rising in popularity as a menswear trend — a little less daunting,” he says. “I also think it just looks really cool and modern. It gives your dressy pair of pants a more youthful, edgy feel.”

Allaire thinks the look could catch on in other workplaces for men. “A dressier skirt-pant combo — paired with a blazer and dress shoes — is super professional-looking.” Maybe, but that might have to wait for the next fashion cycle to truly take off.

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