Dart (sewing) in the context of "Skirts"

A skirt is the lower part of a dress or a separate outer garment that covers a person from the waist downwards.

At its simplest, a skirt can be a draped garment made out of a single piece of fabric (such as pareos). However, most skirts are fitted to the body at the waist or hips and fuller below, with the fullness introduced by means of darts, gores, pleats, or panels. Modern skirts are usually made of light to mid-weight fabrics, such as denim, jersey, worsted, or poplin. Skirts of thin or clingy fabrics are often worn with slips to make the material of the skirt drape better and for modesty.

In fashion, a sheath dress is a fitted, straight cut dress, often nipped at the waistline with no waist seam. When constructing the dress, the bodice and skirt are joined together by combining the skirt darts into one dart: this aligns the skirt darts with the bodice waist dart. The dress emphasizes the waist as its skirt portion is fitted. While the sheath dress can come in many patterns and lengths, it often is worn with short sleeves and reaches knee length.

The neckline is the top edge or edges of a garment that surrounds the neck, especially from the front view. Neckline also refers to the overall visual line between all the layers of clothing and the neck and shoulders of a person, ignoring any unseen undergarments.

For each garment worn above the waist, the neckline is primarily a style line and may be a boundary for further shaping of the upper edge of a garment with, for example, a collar, cowl, darts, or pleats. In that respect it is similar to the waistline and hemline.

A style line is a seam in a garment made primarily for the purpose of its visual effect, rather than for the purpose of shaping of structuring the garment. By contrast, a dart or pleat by itself would not be considered a style line because although each can be used to produce a pleasing visual effect, their main purpose is to shape the garment by taking in ease or adding fullness respectively. Clearly though, there can be some ambiguity as when a dart is made as part of a seam which continues beyond the dart point. If the seam beyond the dart is straight, that is, not affecting the garment's fit, it would be considered a style line.