Rape sucks. So does getting mugged. But by disguising yourself as a life-sized Coca-Cola machine whenever you’re out late at night and feel threatened, you can hide from the bad guys! Seriously? Seriously. According to Bust magazine, Japanese designer Aya Tsukioka has invented an ankle-length skirt constructed from fabric that can be pulled upside down and assembled into a somewhat realistic-looking Coke machine (albeit one with feet poking out from the bottom). What inspired Tsukioka to make her safety skirt? She says a trick used by ninja assassins who would cloak themselves in black blankets in the dark.

Hopefully, while studying the ways of ninja assassins, Tsukioka picked up some self-defense moves that could actually save her because methinks this “Project-Runway”-challenge-gone-wrong won’t work. Here’s hoping she’s using the skirt as street theater to make a statement about the lengths women will go to in order to protect themselves. [Bust Magazine]

About 100 high school students in the U.K. used Facebook to stage a walkout from class Friday after the headmaster threatened a ban on skirts due to ever-shortening hemlines.

“Since half-term, the skirts have got ridiculously short,” headmaster Jane Holland wrote in a letter to the governors of Upton-by-Chester High School in Chester. “The skirts are too revealing especially on staircases. It’s not appropriate for the time and the place.”

Ever since the crash-landing on the Hudson a couple of weeks ago that prompted a re-examination of the old “women and children” first tradition, I’ve been totally freaked out over the possibility of finding myself in some horrific accident in which feminism might totally screw with my chance of beating the little old men in my company to safety. I mean, sure, I want equal rights and everything, but not at the expense of, you know, my life. Can’t we just have both? Well, thanks to designer Yael Mer, maybe we can. His new Evacuation Skirt may be the answer to our prayers. Perfectly cute and stylish when it’s deflated, it can quickly inflate into a kayak “with the right amount of volume to carry a grown up woman.” Who needs to be first when she’s a boat? [via White Space]

This pretty green polished cotton skirt by Brooklyn-based designers Alice Wu and Moriah Carlson is made with love in New York. The scribbles on it remind us of the doodles we used to draw while ignoring our seventh-grade teacher’s lecture on gerunds—except Wu and Carlson are much better at doodling than we ever were. [$124, Beklina]

For the ladies who aren’t fans of pants, like the glamorous Miss Dita Von Teese, here’s a plethora of cute skirts to cover you bum and show off your gams, after the jump…

I think I’m in love. And, FYI, I don’t just fling that word around casually. [Trender Bender]

While we’re still not sure how we feel about men in tights, couture designers like John Galliano, Comme des Garçons, and Etro are putting men in skirts and sending them down the runway.  And we’re not talking tribal Scottish kilts here either—a woman could easily wear these duds for dudes.  The designer taste makers claim the look of a skirt for men has been catching on all over Europe this past season and now they have been showing off the menswear trend during the Spring/Summer 2009 Fashion Week in New York. 

Meet Jessica. She likes to get dressed and take pictures of her outfits. Amelia and I really like her skirt, which she made herself. We wish we were that talented. [What I Wore]