How Short Is Too Short for a Skirt?

I like quick skirts, however as a match, skilled girl, how quick can I’m going? I’m comfy with two, possibly three, inches above the knee, however I worry dressing “too younger” because the years go by. How will I do know when I’ve gone over the road? — Ann, Portsmouth, N.H.

Even earlier than Ally McBeal spawned a cottage trade of should-you-or-shouldn’t-you chatter by carrying exceedingly quick skirts to her regulation agency within the Nineteen Nineties sitcom, and earlier than Mary Quant rocked the style world with the miniskirt within the Nineteen Sixties, Gussie Moran prompted a ruckus within the tennis world in 1949 by chopping the knee-length taking part in skirt to higher thigh, the higher to maneuver across the court docket. Tennis followers quailed, Wimbledon authorities freaked, and Ms. Moran, nicknamed “Beautiful Gussie,” was charged with bringing “vulgarity and sin into tennis.”

The purpose being: Brief skirts within the office have all the time been controversial, it doesn’t matter what the workplace or the age of the particular person carrying them. It began with the ankle again within the Victorian period and has continued incessantly. For some folks, any sight of leg is an issue. That is merely one other dimension of the physique drawback, by which publicity of the feminine physique is seen as warning signal and temptation and has its roots in age-old prejudices and fears.

It isn’t, nonetheless, unlawful. “Normally, something as much as the non-public components may be legally uncovered in public,” stated Susan Scafidi of the Trend Regulation Institute at Fordham College. Which implies you’ll be able to formally put on your skirts as quick as you need nearly wherever — so long as you might be wiling to cope with the judgments of these round you. And the actual fact (see Ally McBeal) that conversations might heart as a lot round what you put on as what you do.

Which may work for or in opposition to you.

On the one hand, it’s annoying to have your garments be the main target of consideration relatively than your substance. That is particularly so given the best way style has been used as a device to dismiss girls as ornamental and never critical contenders for high jobs. (The skirt scandal helped mess up Gussie Moran’s profession.)

Then again, it’s annoying to must deny your gender to show your self. I thought-about it a breakthrough when Michelle Obama wore floral attire as first girl as an alternative of staid skirt fits, as if to confront the world with the truth that one may very well be a change agent and a lady on the similar time.

An excellent pal who began her profession as a authorities lawyer stated she remembered a colleague from her early days in Washington who was identified within the workplace for carrying “too-short skirts and leather-based.”

“We had been all on the fence about it,” my pal stated, “however she knew, and it was her factor.” In the long run the quick skirts turned her colleague’s signature and, as a result of she refused to offer in to social strain to vary, an indication of her toughness.

That is additionally the method of Susan Greenfield, 73, the Oxford neuroscientist, writer and first feminine director of the Royal Establishment, who has been called “Britain’s best-known scientist” due to her profession and her penchant for carrying miniskirts effectively into center age.

“I hate drab garments,” Dr. Greenfield advised The London Times. “And I put on quick skirts as a result of my legs are skinny like Olive Oyl’s.” Additionally as a result of having enjoyable with garments helped in her quest to popularize science.

Tory Burch, 58, whose present assortment occurs to incorporate numerous quick skirts particularly designed to “assist girls really feel stylish, assured and highly effective,” stated that “it comes all the way down to stability.”

“If a skirt may be very quick, I prefer to put on it with the next neckline,” Ms. Burch stated. Assume a minidress with a automotive coat or a brief skirt with a protracted blazer. In winter, suppose matte tights.

In the long run, the selection comes all the way down to what makes you’re feeling most confidently your self, relatively than something to do with style, which nowadays gives skirts quick, lengthy and each size in between. (For her half, Diane von Furstenberg, 77, stated, “I consider the hem ought to flirt with the knee, both above or beneath.”)

In case you are always worrying that your skirts are too quick, they most likely are, not due to any immutable rule however as a result of fascinated with what different folks suppose is occupying an excessive amount of of your mind. If refusing to kowtow to outdated mores makes you’re feeling extra highly effective — kind of like a show of plumage earlier than battle — nice. The selection is yours. And selection is all the time a great factor.

Your Type Questions, Answered

Each week on Open Thread, Vanessa will reply a reader’s fashion-related query, which you’ll ship to her anytime through email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed.