What exactly is a poodle skirt? What does a poodle have to do with it? Is it a skirt worn while holding a poodle? These are questions that you're likely to have if you've never paid attention to fifties fashion.

A poodle skirt is a skirt worn by female teenagers in the 1950s that is a long skirt, usually of one solid color, and contains a sewn shape of a poodle near the bottom hem. Poodle skirts were part of an entire hip hop outfit that included a belt, bobby socks, a button down short sleeve shirt with collar (usually white), the signature scarf, and those two-toned saddle shoes.

Think of what Olivia Newton-John and her girlfriends wore in the movie Grease. And of course, I just watched the movie Back to the Future with my children who are all under twelve. (I'd been thinking for a while about what a fun movie it is, and how my children would enjoy it. Now don't worry, I knew it had bad language in it, but we have a DVD player that edits out language, all except for films by Universal productions. And guess who did Back to the Future? Yep, Universal. Arrgh. So we still watched it with our little ones, but my wife and I did pretty well at coughing when the less than nice words were exclaimed. We only missed a couple; and my goodness, there is a lot of swearing in that movie!)

Anyway, back to fifties fashion... So if you remember the wonderful soda fountain scene and some of the school scenes, you can picture the girls in their poodle skirt outfits. I think some of them might be wearing poodle skirts at enchantment under the sea dance, you know, the one where Marty McFly jams out on the electric guitar? You get the picture.

Who wants to wear poodle skirts nowadays? Where would people today even wear their poodle skirts? What occasions would offer an appropriate social situation for women or girls to dress up in fifties garb? Well, of course, Halloween trick or treating and Halloween parties are the obvious occasions. But what a shame if you only wear that outfit just one time out of the whole year. After all, a poodle skirt costume is the entire ensemble, not just a one-piece throw-over. So you could also wear it to other dress up parties or even to dances. Little girls can enjoy them throughout the year as dress up playtime with their friends.