Pareo

A traditional Polynesian garment: a rectangle of flowered fabric that the natives (both men and women) tie around their hips. Depending on how you tie it, it can be worn either as a skirt or a dress: in Hawaii there are many manuals on sale that demonstrate the different ways. Made famous in the cinema in 1937 by Dorothy Lamour, who played the part of a South Seas woman in the movie Hurricane, its fame spread in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to the “exotic” (and aquatic) musicals of Ester Williams and Elvis Presley. In fashion the term is now used to describe any kind of skirt that is tied at the side, around the hips or above the chest.