Gfilui

I've tried to write up a few new styles of swordsmanship for a story I've been planning. I've got a lot of mileage from different sword types and techniques, but have one idea that I can't find any really world evidence of.

Basically there is at least one school of swordplay that uses ankle length dresses as part of its fitting attire. The idea is that the dress obscures the movements of their legs, making them just a little bit harder to predict in terms of movement and attack.

While this seems fairly plausable to me, I can't find any historical accounts of anything like these combat dresses. So I decided to come here for some feedback.

Does the idea of dresses for dueling make enough sense to include in a setting, if not as a logical idea than as a gimmick a school could use to stand out, or am I completely wrong here? Any evidence I couldn't find would be appreciated, but I perfectly fine with some well informed opinions as well.

Seems like a gimmick. When fencing you should keep your eyes on your opponent's sword, not their feet. Watch their feet and you are asking for a stab between the eyes.

The only thing that comes close is cloak and dagger fencing. From Wikipedia:

The purpose of the cloak was to obscure the presence or movement of the dagger, to provide minor protection from slashes, to restrict the movement of the opponent's weapon, and to provide a distraction. Fencing master Achille Marozzo taught and wrote about this method of combat in his book, Opera Nova. Fighting this way was not necessarily seen as a first choice of weapons, but may have become a necessity in situations of self-defense if one were not carrying a sword, with the cloak being a common garment of the times that could be pressed into use as a defensive aid. Both Marozzo and other masters such as Di Grassi also taught the use of the cloak with the rapier.

So maybe you want to focus on the upper part of the dress, not the lower one.

In Kendo sword fighting you wear either a skirt or very loose pants.

Image copyright Deposit Photos.

First off, as has been pointed out in at least one other answer, if you're watching your opponents leg movements, you're approaching combat wrong. Your eyes should be on their weapon, period. The one possible exception is if your opponent attacks primarily with kicks, in which case watching their legs is watching their weapon. As such, unless your style involves a lot of leg based attacks (not likely because of the next issue), it probably won't have much benefit for what you want.

There's another issue though. It's pretty hard to get your legs tangled up in pants. It's not very hard to do so in a dress or skirt. This means you have to pay a lot more attention to how you are moving, which distracts you from paying attention to your opponent.

Also, if this is a rare choice of uniform, it also puts you at a disadvantage because it tells your opponent what your combat style is (or at least what the basis of your combat style is).

There are a couple of potential benefits though:

• An armored skirt or dress is less likely to further restrict your movement than armored pants. In particular, it's easy to make a banded mail or scale mail 'dress' that hinders movement less than scale mail or banded mail pants would.


• If you don't go for the armored approach, you now have a lot of spare cloth to get your opponent's weapon tangled in. You can use this to try and disarm them.

Cool idea.

It makes sense with one caveat: Dresses move. You can still get an idea of leg position by watching a dress. If the goal is to obscure legs and leg movement, the dress would likely have some boning. It might include something like a rigid hoop that ensures the dress holds its shape, rather than defining the body underneath it.