It was only after a rather embarrassing incident involving a star jump, a ripped skirt and a group of sniggering boys that I realised the virtues of miniskirts. They don’t restrict movement and are back in fashion.
Forty years ago, miniskirts articulated women’s liberation, social radicalism and the power of youth. Quite impressive for a piece of material only 5in long. But it is looking (and feeling) young that is the mini’s greatest achievement. Short skirts are sartorial regression. This winter, skimpy tunics and baby-doll dresses are the easiest way to release the imp within. And it’s not just a visual transformation. Somehow you can get away with murder in a mini.
Wearing wild prints is a case in point. Because of their tiny size, carrying off leopard print (another trend to beware of) or psychedelic swirls is easy in a miniskirt. Like your first studio flat, they are a small space to have fun in. There might be more to play with in a floor-scraping maxi, but wearing a skirt that could happily hang across your window is an interior design step too far.
Control is an underestimated style tool: once the winter sets in, you can hide your mini under a long coat and unveil as you please. But these skirts come with a warning: when your hemline is this daring, you won’t go unnoticed. This isn’t always a bad thing: call me shallow but a wolf whistle on the way to work is a helpful morning pick-me-up. Obviously you don’t want to attract the wrong type of attention. So unless you are frolicking on a beach or have super-tanned pins, a mini should not be accessorised with bare legs (Miss Spears, take note). With their ability to thin out the thighs (a welcome illusion) and keep you warm, tights deserve a proper viewing. And what better way to trot out the current obsession with leggings than under a short skirt?
The final part of this dressing equation is shoes. Happily, I have a soft spot for flat pumps and wedges. The former taps into my aforementioned childish side, while the latter is a chunky antidote to such a brief hemline.
Like a portable pedestal, wedges seriously elongate the leg, a point that should not be underestimated when wearing a short skirt. Balenciaga, a house not known for doing things by halves, rolled all these factors into one (and added riding hats for the hell of it). In its tiny skirts and dresses, the models looked radical, playful and leggy.
That’s the thing about miniskirts, they might be small, but they have a lot to say for themselves.
How to wear a mini
To keep the tarty references at bay, pair a short skirt with a loose blouse, it somehow balances the skirt’s diminutive size. 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
Don’t confuse maxi skirts with gypsy skirts: tiers are for wedding cakes. Crinkly cotton and fussy embellishments are best buried with boho. However, folkloric or medieval touches are fine.
