THE MYSTERY OF LENGTH
by Carola Long

After a summer of gratuitous thigh exposure (that means you, Kate and Victoria), it’s time to put away childish things (in this case knees) and embrace autumn’s grown-up mood. In an age in which we are bombarded with every detail of celebrities’ bodies and personal lives, the quality that sets someone apart is mystery. Wearing a maxi skirt is a shortcut to appearing enigmatic.

As a teenager at the height, or rather depths, of grunge, a pavement-grazing, chocolate satin skirt was the perfect prop in my bid to seem mysterious. Whether flouncing away from arguments or mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, everything seemed grander and more important when you were dressed as if life were a costume drama. So when I saw that Marc Jacobs had referenced his famed 1993 “grunge” collection for Perry Ellis this season, and that the catwalks were awash with maxi dresses, I decided that it was time to reconnect with my inner Romantic/Goth/ Pre-Raphaelite.

If the Wuthering Heights look (Kate Bush or Emily Brontë, take your pick) doesn’t grab you, the advantage of maxi dresses or skirts is that there are endless looks to reference and innumerable ways to wear them.

Think of the languid romanticism of Ossie Clark’s chiffon dresses in the early 1970s. Celia Birtwell’s exuberant textile designs needed space to breathe and movement to bring them alive; putting a beautiful print on a miniskirt is like hanging a Kandinsky in the loo. Consider the fluid Grecian draping on a Halston evening dress, an intrinsic part of the boho-luxe look currently favoured by Los Angeles starlets and heiresses. Maxi dresses, such as the pinafores by Philosophy or Alice McCall, layered over a tight cashmere polo-neck can also look just as cute and youthful as minis, but with a hint of beguiling modesty and without the need for perfect pins.

The fact that you don’t need legs worth insuring to carry off a long skirt makes them instantly preferable to a mini for most of us. Instead of worrying whether this season’s ubiquitous leggingsunder-a-tunic style will make you look more like Robin Hood on doughnuts than Milla Jovovich, sidestep the dilemma with a maxi skirt. No one will know if you are wearing clean, unladdered tights, leggings or a pair of your boyfriend’s England boxer shorts underneath. Wearing a maxi also means that there’s no need to shave your legs — surely the whole point of winter is to give your body time to recover from its summer regime, like allowing land to lie fallow.

Maxi skirts might not be entirely convenient when it comes to puddles, revolving doors etc, but that creates the perfect excuse to lift them as if you were wandering the moors like Cathy, or dancing at hip club The Pheasantry on the Kings Road circa 1970. An A-line skirt allows the most movement, but a tighter style will encourage you to walk tall and gracefully, taking delicate steps rather than ungainly BFG strides. Dressing in a slightly impractical way is all part of the fantasy and escapism created by a long, flowing skirt. If we favoured function over form all the time then we’d be permanently clad in wipe-clean tracksuits and walking boots, and where’s the mystery in that?

How to wear a maxi