The invention relates to a fabric skirt having an upper edge adapted to fit the waist of the wearer and a free lower edge, of greater length than the upper edge, said fabric comprising warp threads and at least one weft thread forming successive courses extending between said edges.

The fabrics or cloths comprising warp and weft threads are usually formed as flat fabric pieces with the selvages or longitudinal edges being straight and mutually parallel. It is rather difficult to cut a garment (such as a skirt) having in a flat development opposite similarly curved edges, from a flat piece of conventional fabric and it produces, furthermore, a relatively large number of cuttings of little use.

It is an object of the invention to provide an easily made-up fabric skirt, the preparation of which does not mean the formation of cuttings.

This object is achieved with a skirt of the type described, which is generally formed by a single piece of fabric in which every two adjacent weft courses are convergent in a direction from the free lower edge to the upper edge and wherein any portion of a warp thread comprised between any two weft courses is longer than any portion of any other warp thread comprised between the same two courses and which is closer to said upper edge and wherein a flat development of the skirt has the form of a sector of a circular crown.

The invention may be better understood from the following, non-limiting description thereof in connection with the accompanying drawings. In the drawings:

• Figure 1 is an elevation view of the skirt of the invention, shown in an ideal regular frustoconical position in which the constituent threads have been shown in exaggerated fashion.
• Figure 2 is a portion of the circular crown sector form, as a result of the development of the frustoconical skirt, in which the threads have been even more exaggerated, being shown artificially separated.
• Figure 3 is a perspective view of a skirt in the position of use, the wearer having been omitted.

The fabric skirt 2 described has an upper edge 4 adapted for fitting to the waist of a wearer, not shown. The skirt is finished with a free lower edge 6 which is longer than the said upper edge 4.

The fabric from which the skirt is formed comprises warp threads 8. When the skirt 2 is hanging from the upper edge 4 and the latter is in a generally horizontal plane, both the lower edge 6 and each of the warp threads 8 are also lying generally in respective horizontal planes. Furthermore, when a flat development of the skirt is ob­tained, as shown in part in Figure 2, said warp threads 8 are disposed in generally concentric circular arcs.

The fabric also comprises at least one weft thread 9 forming successive courses 10, 10′ extending between the said edges 4, 6. Each pair of adjacent courses 10, 10′ is disposed convergent in the direction from the lower edge 6 to the upper edge 4. This convergence may be particularly seen in the partial flat development of Figure 2 and all the courses are generally radial, since they converge generally on an ideal centre 12.

Referring once again to the warp threads 8, it is stated that any portion of a warp thread 8′ comprised between two weft courses 10, 10˝ is longer than a portion of any other warp thread 8˝ comprised between the same two weft courses 10, 10˝ and lying closer to the upper edge 4. This peculiarity is related with the feature already cited above that the warp threads form concentric circular arcs, whereby it is necessary for the thread forming an arc of a particular radius to be longer that the one forming an arc of shorter radius.

The above described thread arrangement implies that the density of the weft threads 10 is maximum at the upper edge 4 and said density diminishes gradually down to the free lower edge. Said density variation may be compensated for by having the warp threads spaced farther apart at the upper edge and drawing gradually closer as they approach the lower free edge 6.

With a fabric such as the one described, it is very easy to make up the skirt, since it is sufficient to join the extreme convergent sides of the flat development with a single seam 12 to form the circular crown sector. The skirt may obviously comprise other parts of different fabric from the said fabric, for example, for accessory or ornamental effects.

The fabric of reference may be woven in a conventional loom in which in the stage immediately subsequent to the picking stage, the warp threads 8 are subjected to a uniformly increasing tension from the edge 4 (which becomes the upper edge) to the edge 6 (which becomes the lower edge). This uniformly growing tension may be achieved by feeding the fabric between two generally tangentially rotating tapering rollers on a common generating line.

The tension that such rollers exert on the fabric in which the weft has just been inserted is obviously greater in the area corresponding to the larger base of the rollers and diminishes therefrom generally uniformly.