In the early days of ballet, dance was a social pastime in which dancers wore their own clothes. After French ruler Louis XIV established the Academie Nationale de Musique et de Danse in 1661, ballet techniques grew in complexity, requiring specialized clothing. So as not to reveal too much during movements that caused a dancer's skirts to whirl, leotards known as "precautionary drawers" were used. By the end of the 17th century, the continued popularity of ballet as a dance form led to changes in the clothing used. Shorter skirts and the invention of tights allowed dancers greater freedom of movement.
French ballerina Marie Taglioni is attributed with designing the tutu, and first wore it onstage at the Opera national de Paris in an 1832 performance of "La Sylphide." Taglioni designed the tutu as a way of displaying her intricate footwork while dancing, which was hidden by a long skirt. According to apocryphal legend, the tutu received its name from commoners who looked up at the ballet while seated on the lower level of the theater, and used the word "tutu" as a derivation of slang for a woman's bottom.
Over time, the tutu was shortened as a way of revealing the dancer's legs and footwork to the audience. In the 1880s, Italian ballerina Virginia Zucci was the first to wear a shorter, softer tutu that ended just around the knees. Then, as now, the purpose of the tutu was aesthetic, to present the illusion that the dancer was floating on an ethereal cloud, while allowing the audience an unencumbered view of the dancer's leg and foot movements.
There are various types of tutus. The romantic tutu is similar to that introduced by Taglioni, a three-quarter-length skirt made of tulle and shaped like a bell, with a hemline somewhere between the knee and ankle. There are two types of classical tutu, known as the bell tutu and the pancake tutu. The bell tutu has a bell shape, extends outward from the hips, and is shorter and stiffer than the romantic tutu. The pancake tutu is similar, but with a flat, pancake shape as opposed to a bell shape, and typically uses a wire hoop to keep the layers stiff. The powder-puff tutu was designed by American choreographer George Balanchine, a soft, short tutu that has fewer layers of netting and no wire.