Miniskirt
![]() Chequered Miniskirt | |
Designer | Mary Quant |
---|---|
Year | late 1960s |
Type | Clothing worn around the waist and above the knees, generally at mid-thigh level |
Material | fabric |
A miniskirt (sometimes hyphenated as mini-skirt, separated as mini skirt, or sometimes shortened to simply mini) is a skirt with its hemline well above the knees, generally at mid-thigh level, normally no longer than 10 cm (4 in) below the buttocks;[1] and a dress with such a hemline is called a minidress or a miniskirt dress. A micro-miniskirt or microskirt is a miniskirt with its hemline at the upper thigh, at or just below crotch or underwear level.
Short skirts have existed for a long time before they made it into mainstream fashion, though they were generally not called "mini" until they became a fashion trend in the 1960s. Instances of clothing resembling miniskirts have been identified by archaeologists and historians as far back as c. 1390–1370 BC. In the early 20th century, the dancer Josephine Baker's banana skirt that she wore for her mid-1920s performances in the Folies Bergère was subsequently likened to a miniskirt. Extremely short skirts became a staple of 20th-century science fiction, particularly in 1940s pulp artwork, such as that by Earle K. Bergey, who depicted futuristic women in a "stereotyped combination" of metallic miniskirt, bra and boots.
Hemlines were just above the knee in 1961,[citation needed] and gradually climbed upward over the next few years. By 1966, some designs had the hem at the upper thigh. Stockings with suspenders (garters) were not considered practical with miniskirts and were replaced with coloured tights. The popular acceptance of miniskirts peaked in the "Swinging London" of the 1960s, and has continued to be commonplace, particularly among younger women and teenage girls. Before that time, short skirts were only seen in sport and dance clothing, such as skirts worn by female tennis players, figure skaters, cheerleaders, and dancers.
Several designers have been credited with the invention of the 1960s miniskirt, most significantly the London-based designer Mary Quant and the Parisian André Courrèges.
History
[edit]History in China
[edit]![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/Duan_Qun_Miao_women_from_a_One_Hundred_Miao_Pictures_album%2C_pre-1912.gif/220px-Duan_Qun_Miao_women_from_a_One_Hundred_Miao_Pictures_album%2C_pre-1912.gif)
In the Warring States period of China, men could wear short skirts similar to a kilt.[2]: 166 In the Qin dynasty, the first imperial dynasty of China, some short skirts worn by men were short enough to reach the mid-thighs as observed in the Terracotta army of Qin Shihuang.[3] Han Chinese women also wore short outer skirts, such as the yaoqun (Chinese: 腰裙) and the weichang (Chinese: 围裳); however, they had to be worn over a long skirt.[4]: 49 One of the earliest known cultures where women regularly wore clothing resembling miniskirts was a subgroup of the Miao people of China, the duanqun Miao (Chinese: 短裙苗; pinyin: duǎnqún miáo; lit. 'short skirt Miao').[5] In albums produced during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) from the early eighteenth century onward to illustrate the various types of Miao, the duanqun Miao women were depicted wearing "mini skirts that barely cover the buttocks."[5] At least one of the "One Hundred Miao Pictures" albums contains a poem that specifically describes how the women's short skirts and navel-baring styles were an identifier for this particular group.[6][7]
History in Europe and America
[edit]Pre-1960s
[edit]Figurines produced by the Vinča culture (c. 5700–4500 BC) have been interpreted by archaeologists as representing women in miniskirt-like garments.[8] One of the oldest surviving garments resembling a miniskirt is short and woolen with bronze ornaments. It was worn by the Egtved Girl for her burial in the Nordic Bronze Age (c. 1390–1370 BCE).[9][10]
![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/OYME_girls.jpg/170px-OYME_girls.jpg)
Russian writer Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky has noted numerous times in his ethnographic works about the 19th century Mordvin (Erzya and Moksha) people that their culture valued the beauty of female legs, and Mordvin women could wear short ponevas (a kind of traditional skirt).[11]
In 1922, skirts were shortened and could now reach the mid-shin rather than just the ankle.[12] The banana skirt worn by the dancer Josephine Baker for her mid-1920s performances in the Folies Bergère was subsequently likened to a miniskirt.[13][14] Prior to being censored in 1934, cartoon character Betty Boop also wore a short skirt.[15] In the 20th century until the 1960 woman did generally not wear skirts above the knee. Exceptions included stage performers or showgirls like Josephine Baker, athletes, and competitive dancers. During the 1950s, even the skirts of cheerleaders and many ballerinas fell to the calf. Women were taught to keep their knees covered, seat themselves in ways that kept the legs together, or maintain other postures to avoid being viewed as sexually promiscuous.[16] Nevertheless, miniskirts were beginning to emerge by this time. Two notable examples that showed miniskirts were the science fiction films Flight to Mars (1951) and Forbidden Planet (1956).[17]
Mid-20th century science fiction
[edit]Extremely short skirts became a staple of 20th-century science fiction, particularly in 1940s pulp artwork such as that by Earle K. Bergey, who depicted futuristic women in a "stereotyped combination" of metallic miniskirt, bra and boots.[18][19] The "sci-fi miniskirt" was seen in genre films and television programmes as well as on comic book covers.[18] The very short skirts worn by regular female characters Carol and Tonga (played by Virginia Hewitt and Nina Bara) in the 1950–55 television series Space Patrol are considered as probably the first 'micro-minis' to have been seen on American television.[18] Only one formal complaint relating to the skirts has been known, by an advertisement agency regarding an upwards shot of Carol climbing a ladder.[18] Hewitt pointed out that even though the complainant claimed they could see up her skirt, her matching tights rendered her effectively clothed from neck to ankle.[18] Otherwise, Space Patrol was applauded for being wholesome and family-friendly, even though the women's short skirts would have been unacceptable in other contexts.[18] Although the 30th-century women in Space Patrol were empowered, experts in their field, and largely treated as equals, "it was the skirts that fuelled indelible memories."[20] The Space Patrol skirts were not the shortest to be broadcast at the time. The German-made American 1954 series Flash Gordon showed Dale Arden (played by Irene Champlin) in an even shorter skirt.[21]
1960s
[edit]The manager of an unnamed shop in London's Oxford Street began experimenting in 1960 with skirt hemlines an inch above the knees on window mannequins and noted how positively his customers responded.[22] In August 1961, Life published a photograph of two Seattle students at the University of Hawaiʻi wearing above-the-knee garments called "kookie-muus", an abbreviated version of the traditionally concealing muumuu, and noted a "current teen-age fad for short skirts" that was pushing hemlines well above the knee.[23] The article also showed young fashionable girls in San Francisco wearing hemlines "just above the kneecap" and students at Vanderbilt University wearing "knee ticklers" ending three inches above their knee when playing golf. The caption commented that such short skirts were selling well in the South and that "some Atlanta girls" were cutting old skirts to "thigh high" lengths.[23]
Extremely short skirts, some as much as eight inches above the knee, were observed in Britain in the summer of 1962.[24] The young women who wore these short skirts were called "Ya-Ya girls", a term derived from "yeah, yeah" which was a popular catcall at the time.[24] One retailer noted that the fashion for layered net crinoline petticoats raised the hems of short skirts even higher.[24] The earliest known reference to the miniskirt is in a humorous 1962 article datelined Mexico City and describing the "mini-skirt" or "Ya-Ya" as a controversial item of clothing that was the latest thing on the production line there. The article characterised the miniskirt as stopping eight inches above the knee. It referred to a writing by a psychiatrist, whose name it did not provide, who had argued that the miniskirt was a youthful protest of international threats to peace. Much of the article described the reactions of men, who were said to favour the fashion on young women to whom they were unrelated, but to oppose it on their own wives and fiancées.[25]
Only a very few of the avant-garde, almost entirely in the UK, wore such lengths in the beginning years of the decade.[26][27] The standard hemline for public and designer garments in the early sixties was mid-knee, just covering the knee.[28] It would gradually climb upward over the next few years, fully baring the knees of mainstream models in 1964, when both André Courrèges[29] and Mary Quant[30][31] showed above-the-knee lengths, followed shortly thereafter by Rudi Gernreich[32] and Jacques Tiffeau in the US.[33] The following year, skirts continued to rise as British miniskirts were officially introduced to the US in a New York show whose models' thigh-high skirts stopped traffic.[34] By 1966, many designs had the hem at the upper thigh.[35] Towards the end of the 1960s, an even shorter version of the miniskirt, called the microskirt or micro-mini, emerged.[36][37]
![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Aankomst_Paper_Dolls_%2C_Engelse_beatgroep%2C_op_Schiphol._De_Paper_Dolls%2C_Bestanddeelnr_921-4476.jpg/220px-Aankomst_Paper_Dolls_%2C_Engelse_beatgroep%2C_op_Schiphol._De_Paper_Dolls%2C_Bestanddeelnr_921-4476.jpg)
The shape of miniskirts in the 1960s was distinctive. They were not the squeezingly tight skirts designed to show off every curve that 1950s sheath skirts had been, nor were they shortened versions of the tightly belted, petticoat-bolstered 1950s circle skirt. In the 1990s and later, exhibitions on the sixties would occasionally present vintage miniskirts pulled in tight against gallery mannequins, but sixties miniskirts were not worn tight in that way.[38] Sixties miniskirts were simply-constructed, uninhibiting, slightly flared A-line shapes, with some straight and tapered forms seen in the early years of their existence.[39] This shape was seen as deriving from two forms of the 1950s: (1) the shift dress, a waistless, tapered column introduced by Givenchy in 1955,[40][41] presaged by Karl Lagerfeld in 1954,[42] and refined by Givenchy and Balenciaga in 1957 under the names sack dress or chemise dress,[43][44][45][46] and (2) the trapeze dresses popularized by Yves Saint Laurent in 1958[47] that were a variation of Dior's 1955 A-line,[48][49][50] both of a geometric triangular shaping. In silhouette, the minidresses of the mid-1960s were basically abbreviated versions[51] of the shift dress and trapeze dress,[52][53][54] with Paco Rabanne's famous metal and plastic minidresses of 1966 and 1967 following the trapeze line and most of Rudi Gernreich's following the shift line. Mary Quant and other British designers, as well as Betsey Johnson in the US,[55] also showed minidresses that resembled elongated rugby jerseys, body-skimming but not tight. When skirts were worn alone, they tended to sit on the hips rather than holding the waist, called hipster minis if they were really low on the hips.[56] The fashionable forms of the microminis of the later 1960s were also not tight, often looking somewhat tunic-like[57] and in fabrics like Qiana.[58]
In addition, sixties miniskirts were not worn with high heels but with flats or low heels,[59][60][61][62] for a natural stance, a natural stride,[63][64][65] and to enhance the fashionable child-like look of the time,[66][67][68][69][70] seen as a reaction to 1950s artifice such as stiletto heels, constrained waists, padded busts, and movement-inhibiting skirts.[71][72] The designer Mary Quant was quoted as saying that "short short skirts" indicated youthfulness, which was seen as desirable, fashion-wise.[24]
In the UK, skirts shortened to less than 24 inches (610 mm) were classed as children's garments rather than adult clothes. Children's clothing was not subject to purchase tax whereas adult clothing was.[73] The avoidance of tax meant that the price was correspondingly less.[74][75]
Stockings with suspenders (American English: "garters") were not considered practical with miniskirts and were replaced with coloured tights.[76][77][78] Legs could also be covered with knee-high socks[79][80] or various heights of boots, lower-calf height in 1964–65,[81][82] knee-heights throughout the period,[83][84] over-the-knee and thigh-high boots more 1967–69,[85][86] and even boot-hose or body boots (tights incorporating a shoe sole and heel to form a waist-high boot) often in stretch vinyl.[87][88] Sandal straps or laces might crisscross or otherwise rise up the leg,[89][90] even as high as the thigh,[91] and body paints were offered for a time to add colour to the leg in more individualised ways than wearing tights.
During the late 1960s, as most skirts became shorter and shorter,[92] designers began offering a few alternatives.[93][94] Calf-length midi-skirts were introduced in 1966–67,[95][96] and floor-length maxi-skirts appeared around the same time[97] after being seen on hippies first around 1965–66. Like miniskirts, these were overwhelmingly casual in feel and simply constructed to a two-straight-side-seams A-line shape. Women in the late sixties welcomed these new styles as options but did not necessarily wear them,[98][99][100] feeling societal pressure to shorten their skirts instead.[101][102][103]
Decades later, starting in the late nineties, the term midi-skirt would be expanded to refer to any calf-length skirt from any era, including skirts of that length from the 1930s, 1950s, and 1980s of any shape,[104] and the term maxi-skirt would be expanded to apply to any floor-length skirt from any era, including ballgowns. This was not the case during a period from the late 1960s to the 1980s, when the term midi-skirt only applied to casual, simply-cut A-line calf-length skirts of the late sixties and earliest seventies and the term maxi-skirt only applied to casual, simply-cut A-line floor-length skirts of the late sixties and earliest seventies. Even the full, calf-length skirts worn from the mid-seventies to the early eighties were not called midi-skirts at the time,[105][106] as that was by 1974 considered a passė term restricted only to a specific shape of skirt from the late sixties and earliest seventies.
As designers attempted to require women to switch to midi-skirts in 1969 and 1970, women, especially in the US,[107] responded by ignoring them,[108] continuing to wear minis and microminis[109] and turning to trousers[110] like those endorsed by Yves Saint Laurent in 1968,[111] a trend that would dominate the 1970s.
Designer claims
[edit]Several designers have been credited with the invention of the 1960s miniskirt, most significantly the London-based designer Mary Quant and the Parisian André Courrèges. Although Quant reportedly named the skirt after her favourite make of car, the Mini,[112][113] there is no consensus as to who designed it first. Valerie Steele has noted that the claim that Quant was first is more convincingly supported by evidence than the equivalent Courrèges claim.[114] However, the contemporary fashion journalist Marit Allen, who edited the influential "Young Ideas" pages for UK Vogue, firmly stated that the British designer John Bates was the first to offer fashionable miniskirts.[115] Other designers, including Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent, had also been raising hemlines at the same time.[116]
- Mary Quant
The miniskirt is one of the garments most widely associated with Mary Quant.[117] Quant herself is ambivalent about the claim that she invented the miniskirt, stating that her customers should take credit, as she herself wore very short skirts, and they requested even shorter hemlines for themselves.[118] Regardless of whether or not Quant invented the miniskirt, it is widely agreed that she was one of its highest-profile champions.[114][116][119] Contrary to obvious and popular belief, Quant named the garment after the Mini Cooper, a favourite car of hers, stating that the car and the skirt were both "optimistic, exuberant, young, flirty", and complemented each other.[112][120]
Quant had started experimenting with shorter skirts in the late 1950s, when she started making her own designs up to stock her boutique on the King's Road.[118] Among her inspirations was the memory of seeing a young tap-dancer wearing a "tiny skirt over thick black tights", influencing her designs for young, active women who did not wish to resemble their mothers.[112][118] In addition to the miniskirt, Quant is often credited with inventing the coloured and patterned tights that tended to accompany the garment, although their creation is also attributed to the Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga who offered harlequin-patterned tights in 1962[121][122] or to Bates.[123]
In 2009, a Mary Quant minidress was among the 10 British "design classics" featured on a series of Royal Mail stamps, alongside the Tube map, the Spitfire, and the red telephone box.[112][124]
- André Courrèges
Courrèges explicitly claimed that he invented the mini, and accused Quant of only "commercialising" it.[114] He presented short skirts measuring four inches above the knee in January 1965 for that year's Spring/Summer collection,[116] although some sources claim that Courrèges had been designing miniskirts as early as 1961, the year he launched his couture house.[114] The collection, which also included trouser suits and cut-out backs and midriffs, was designed for a new type of athletic, active young woman.[116] Courrèges had presented "above-the-knee" skirts in his August 1964 haute couture presentation which was proclaimed the "best show seen so far" for that season by The New York Times.[125] The Courrèges look, featuring a knit bodystocking with a gabardine miniskirt slung around the hips, was widely copied and plagiarised, much to the designer's chagrin, and it would be 1967 before he again held a press showing for his work.[116] Steele has described Courrèges's work as a "brilliant couture version of youth fashion" whose sophistication far outshone Quant's work, although she champions the Quant claim.[114] Others, such as Jess Cartner-Morley of The Guardian explicitly credit him, rather than Quant, as the miniskirt's creator.[121]
- John Bates and others
![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/1965_John_Bates_for_Jean_Varon_mindress_01.jpg/170px-1965_John_Bates_for_Jean_Varon_mindress_01.jpg)
The idea that John Bates, rather than Quant or Courrèges, innovated the miniskirt had an influential champion in Marit Allen, who as editor of the influential "Young Ideas" pages for UK Vogue, kept track of up-and-coming young designers.[115] In 1966 she chose Bates to design her mini-length wedding outfit in white gabardine and silver PVC.[115] In January 1965 Bates's "skimp dress" with its "short-short skirt" was featured in Vogue, and would later be chosen as the Dress of the Year.[127][128][129] Bates was also famous for having designed mini-coats and dresses and other outfits for Emma Peel (played by Diana Rigg) in the TV series The Avengers, although the manufacturers blocked his request for patterned tights to enable Emma Peel to fight in skirts if necessary.[115][123]
An alternative origin story for the miniskirt came from Barbara Hulanicki of the London boutique Biba, who recalled that in 1966 she received a delivery of stretchy jersey skirts that had shrunk drastically in transit. Much to her surprise, the ten-inch long garments rapidly sold out.[130]
In 1967 Rudi Gernreich was among the first American designers to offer miniskirts, in the face of strongly worded censure and criticism from American couturiers James Galanos and Norman Norell.[131] Criticism of the miniskirt also came from the Paris couturier Coco Chanel, who declared the style "disgusting" despite being herself famed for supporting shorter skirts in the 1920s.[114][132]
Reception
[edit]![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Twirling_model_in_miniskirt_and_tights_at_Mary_Quant_fashion_show%2C_Utrecht%2C_24_March_1969_crop.jpg/170px-Twirling_model_in_miniskirt_and_tights_at_Mary_Quant_fashion_show%2C_Utrecht%2C_24_March_1969_crop.jpg)
Owing to Quant's position in the heart of fashionable "Swinging London", the miniskirt was able to spread beyond a simple street fashion into a major international trend, with not only significant aesthetic value but also considerable political worth.[133] The style came into prominence when Jean Shrimpton wore a short white shift dress, made by Colin Rolfe, on 30 October 1965 at Derby Day, first day of the annual Melbourne Cup Carnival in Australia, where it caused a sensation. According to Shrimpton, who claimed that the brevity of the skirt was due mainly to Rolfe's having insufficient material, the ensuing controversy was as much as anything to do with her having dispensed with a hat and gloves, seen as essential accessories in such a conservative society.[134][135]
Upper garments, such as rugby shirts, were sometimes adapted as mini-dresses. With the rise in hemlines, the wearing of tights or pantyhose, in place of stockings, became more common. At the same time, there was some opposition in the US to miniskirts as bad influences on the young,[136] but this waned as people became more accustomed to them.[137] Some European countries banned mini-skirts from being worn in public, claiming they were an invitation to rapists. In response, Quant retorted that there was clearly no understanding of the tights worn underneath.[138]
The response to the miniskirt was particularly harsh in Africa, where many state governments saw them as an un-African garment and part of the corrupting influence of the West.[139] Young city-dwelling African women who wore Western clothing such as the miniskirt were particularly at risk of attack based on their clothing, although Robert Ross notes that gender roles and politics were also a key factor.[139] The urban woman earning her own living and independence was seen as a threat to masculine authority, particularly if she wore clothing seen as un-African.[139] Short skirts were seen as indicating that their wearer was a prostitute, and by conflation, a witch who drained male-dominated society of its vitality and energy.[139] In addition to prostitutes and witches, miniskirts also became associated with secretaries, schoolgirls and undergraduates, and young women with "sugar daddies" as lovers or boyfriends.[140] Andrew M. Ivaska has noted that these various tropes boiled down to a basic fear of female power, fear that a woman would use her education or sexual power to control men and/or achieve her own independence, and that the miniskirt therefore became a tangible object of these fears.[140]
![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/%DA%AF%D8%B1%D9%88%DA%AF%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%BE%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%B1.jpg/170px-%DA%AF%D8%B1%D9%88%DA%AF%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%BE%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%B1.jpg)
In 1968, the Youth League of Tanzania's ruling TANU party launched Operation Vijana.[139] Organised and run by young men, Vijana was a morality campaign targeting indecent clothing, which led to attacks on women with at least one stoning reportedly triggered by the victim's miniskirt.[139] Gangs of youths patrolled bus stations and streets looking for women dressed "inappropriately", and dealing out physical attacks and beatings.[140] In Ethiopia, an attack on women wearing miniskirts triggered a riot of leftist students in which a hundred cars were set on fire and fifty people injured.[139]
Kamuzu Banda, president of Malawi, described miniskirts as a "diabolic fashion which must disappear from the country once and for all."[139] It is also reported that Kenneth Kaunda, president of Zambia, cited apartheid and the miniskirt as his two primary hates.[139] By the mid-1970s the Zanzibar revolutionary party had forbidden both women and men from wearing a long list of garments, hairstyles and cosmetics, including miniskirts.[139]
In the Soviet Union, miniskirts became widely known after the 1967 Moscow International Fashion Festival, and quickly made their way into popular media, including movies (The Diamond Arm, Afonya, Office Romance),[141] cartoons (The Bremen Town Musicians) and sci-fi works (i.e. Definitely Maybe and The Final Circle of Paradise), despite strong criticism from senior citizens and attempts to control skirt lengths in public[142][141] (which continued well into the 1980s - for example, hard rock vocalist Elena Sokolova has angered the authorities by wearing an extremely short skirt on stage during her performance at the Rock Panorama '86 festival[143]). One of the best known Soviet designers of miniskirts was Vyacheslav Zaitsev.[142] Short skirts and dresses remain popular in modern day Russia (except for some conservative Muslim regions like Dagestan, where wearing miniskirts is strongly frowned upon and discouraged by travel advisories[144]).
Post-1960s
[edit]1970s
[edit]From 1969 onwards, the fashion industry largely returned to longer skirts such as the midi and the maxi,[145][146] with even Mary Quant showing no above-the-knee skirts for 1970.[147] Journalist Christopher Booker gave two reasons for this reaction: firstly, that "there was almost nowhere else to go ... the mini-skirts could go no higher"; and secondly, in his view, "dressed up in mini-skirts and shiny PVC macs, given such impersonal names as 'dolly birds', girls had been transformed into throwaway plastic objects".[148] This lengthening of hemlines coincided with the growth of the feminist movement. However, in the 1960s the mini had been regarded as a symbol of liberation, and it was worn by some, such as Germaine Greer and, in the following decade, Gloria Steinem.[149] Greer herself wrote in 1969 that:
The women kept on dancing while their long skirts crept up, and their girdles dissolved, and their nipples burst through like hyacinth tips and their clothes withered away to the mere wisps and ghosts of draperies to adorn and glorify ...[150]
In the earliest seventies, particularly in the US, minis and microminis briefly rebounded in popularity[151] after women's rejection of designers' attempt to impose midiskirts as the sole length in 1970, referred to as "the midi debacle."[152][153][154] Women both continued to wear miniskirts and switched even more to trousers,[155][156] and designers, having been made to understand that they would no longer be respected as arbiters,[157][158] followed suit for a couple of years and included minis again,[159][160][161][162] often underneath midis and maxis.[163][164][165][166] Unlike in the 1960s, minis during this period might be worn with chunky platform shoes, often with high wedge heels.[167][168] In 1971, almost all designers, even upper-echelon couture designers,[169][170][171] showed hot pants,[172] also presented in combination with midiskirts, maxiskirts, and minis.[173] They continued to express a desire for women to wear longer skirts, though, and soon those women who had not switched entirely to jeans and trousers were often wearing their skirts at the knee.[174][175] In 1973, Kenzo made calf-length skirts look new by cutting them fuller and in lighter fabrics for a style that was very different from the midi[176] and women soon accepted this, making it one of the characteristic styles of the mid-seventies, one that would last into the early eighties, sometimes dropping to the ankle.
Although miniskirts had mostly disappeared from mainstream fashion by the mid-'70s,[177][178][179][180] prompting the leading designer of the time, Yves Saint Laurent, to say, "I don't think short skirts will ever come back,"[181] they never entirely went away, with women having to be pressured by the fashion industry to abandon above-the-knee skirts as late as 1974[182][183] and even some mainstream designers like Halston,[184][185] Kenzo,[186][187] and Karl Lagerfeld[188] offering a few mini-tunics and mini-blousons among the standard calf-length dirndl skirts of the mid-seventies Big Look period.[189][190][191][192] In these occasional high-fashion versions of the mid-seventies,[193] mini was taken to mean any length above the knee.[194] Enough above-the-knee skirts were shown in Paris in 1976 for fashion writers to suggest a possible mini revival,[195] but these were never broadly taken up by the general public,[196][197] which was still gravitating toward below-the-knee dirndls.
Around 1976,[198] punks began including among their array of clothes intended to shock very short miniskirts in materials like black leather, rubber, PVC,[199] tartan, and even trash bag plastic,[200][201] the unfashionable length shocking almost as much as the aggressive materials. Punks of this period also introduced the wearing of miniskirts with then-very-out-of-style high-heeled, late-1950s pumps, which they got at thrift shops, a combination not worn in the 1960s and unthinkable during the 1950s.[202] Though not at all mainstream, these punk looks would influence bands that came after them into wearing more sixties-looking miniskirts again, as evidenced by Deborah Harry of the group Blondie, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson of The B-52's, Fay Fife of The Revillos, Rhoda Dakar of The Bodysnatchers, Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the group The Slits, who often wore miniskirts during the "new wave" era of the late '70s. Some of these performers were part of a few sixties-revival subcultures that came in the wake of punk and included Mod revival and ska revival, both of whose female adherents sought out authentic-looking early miniskirts as part of their sixties-revival look.[203][204] Blondie's Deborah Harry had her sixties-ish look provided by fashion designer Stephen Sprouse,[205] who had been responsible for Halston's "skimp" minis of 1974[206] and would become internationally known for his own sixties-revival line during the eighties. The song "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" (1978), by new wave artist Elvis Costello, contains the line in the chorus: "There's no place here for the mini-skirt waddle."[207]
During the seventies, when males and females typically wore identical denim cutoff shorts instead of miniskirts if they wanted short lengths, the female cast members of the US TV show Hee Haw, known as the "Hee Haw Honeys", always wore country-style minidresses even during the miniskirt's fashion hiatus in the late '70s and early '80s; and as mentioned above, female tennis players, figure skaters, cheerleaders, and dancers also wore short skirts.
Toward the end of the seventies, in 1978 and '79, some of the above-the-knee skirt looks that would become associated with the eighties began to be introduced,[208][209][210] including the flounced, hip-yoked style debuted by Norma Kamali and Perry Ellis in 1979 and called rah-rah skirts in the UK[211][212] and above-the-knee versions of the tight sheath skirt, with even Yves Saint Laurent showing some above-the-knee lengths.[213][214] The sixties-revival subcultures emanating from the UK seemed to reach the high fashion world somewhat in 1979,[215] as a few Paris catwalks presented styles seemingly pulled right out of the sixties, including miniskirts inspired by Courrèges, Rabanne, and Gernreich.[216][217] Courrèges himself revived some of his sixties styles that year.[218] Some fashion writers even proclaimed a miniskirt revival for 1979-80, particularly from Paris designers.[219][220][221] At this point, these styles were still considered avant-garde, though,[222] and a variety of mostly longer skirts were worn by the public, with the full, calf-length forms that had dominated the mid-seventies still prevalent but beginning to be made slimmer,[223] slightly shorter,[224][225][226] more brightly coloured,[227][228] and often slit.[229] The mainstream return of the miniskirt would not come until the 1980s.
![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Rah_rah_skirt.jpg/170px-Rah_rah_skirt.jpg)
1980s and 1990s
[edit]Miniskirts returned to mainstream acceptance in the 1980s, but with some differences from the 1960s:
Because women had worn skirts that covered the knee and often dropped to the calf for so many years during the 1970s, any skirt above the knee was often called a miniskirt in the late seventies and early eighties, even skirts that hit just above the knee.
They were not presented this time as the only length women should wear, nor was there societal pressure for women to shorten their hemlines, as there had been in the late 1960s when designers also presented a variety of lengths.[230][231][232] They were now just one option among a variety of lengths and styles of skirts and pants available to women,[233][234][235][236] and miniskirts tended to be in the minority among all the other kinds of skirts and pants seen on the streets, particularly in the early part of the decade. Throughout the decade, street lengths ranged from ankle to thigh, for both skirts and trousers, and most women wore their skirts just below the knee,[237][238] as they also had in the seventies.[239]
Miniskirts came in a greater variety of shapes than in the sixties, from full and flouncy to narrow to tight to abbreviated revivals of skirt shapes of the 1940s and '50s[240][241] like sheath skirts, trumpet skirts, tulip skirts, and bubble/puffball skirts. Above-the-knee versions of strapless 1950s dresses were seen, as were formal minis with bustles and trains in the back.[242] Even tutus were shown mid-decade.[243][244] Many above-the-knee dresses had noticeable shoulder pads.[245][246][247][248]
They were worn with a greater range of heel heights than in the sixties, depending on the shape of the miniskirt, with flats preferred for some styles and high-heeled pumps preferred for others.[249][250][251] In the early part of the decade, opaque tights, sometimes brightly coloured,[252][253] and flat, calf-high boots might be worn with the more casual styles, much like in the mid-sixties.[254][255] Throughout the period, dressier styles with high heels tended to be worn with hose ranging from slightly tinted to opaque.[256] A punk influence was sometimes seen when miniskirts were paired with combat boots or Doc Martens.[257]
Another difference between 1960s miniskirts and 1980s miniskirts is that 1980s miniskirts might be worn over footless tights, long tight shorts, various lengths of thermal underwear, or tight, cropped pants, a trend that began with designers like Norma Kamali, Perry Ellis, and Willi Smith in 1979.[258][259] In the early eighties, the footless tights might be referred to by the 1950s terms clamdiggers or pedal-pushers, depending on their length, but at the end of the eighties, footless tights began to be referred to as leggings. Also at the end of the eighties, visible bike shorts were often worn with miniskirts.[260]
In the early eighties, miniskirts were still considered avant-garde and unusual among the public,[261][262][263][264] though designers had begun showing them again in 1979[265] and had begun shortening some skirts to just above the knee in 1978.[266] Some minis from 1979 and '80 were modeled after sweatshirts.[267][268][269] Others were lifted straight out of the Space Age mid-sixties.[270][271][272] Some were inspired by punk.[273]
The most influential designer of miniskirts in the early eighties was probably Norma Kamali. In 1980, she introduced sweatshirt-fabric versions of the flounced, hip-yoked, above-the-knee skirts she had first presented in 1979, called rah-rah skirts in the UK.[274] In 1981 and '82, miniskirts from this "Sweats" line would reach mainstream levels of popularity and make Kamali a household name.[275][276]
In the spring of 1982 (as featured in the June issue of Time Magazine that year), short skirts began to re-emerge more strongly among the public,[277] notably in the form of "rah-rahs", which were modeled on those worn by female cheerleaders at sporting and other events.
By 1983, miniskirts had become more widespread, but the Kamali-style full versions common in 1981-82 had waned in popularity in favor of slim, straight minis in jean-cut blue denim,[278][279][280] as well as other trim styles.[281]
Kenzo had been almost the only designer to champion miniskirts during their nadir in the mid-seventies, and he was vindicated in the eighties as several of the miniskirt styles he had shown back then[282] were taken up by other designers.[283]
Yves Saint Laurent had believed short skirts would never return in the mid-seventies,[284] but he led the move to above-the-knee skirts starting in 1978[285][286] and during the first half of the eighties was known for his slim, black leather miniskirts.[287][288][289]
Karl Lagerfeld had begun showing miniskirts again at the end of the seventies[290] and in 1983 would take over the house of Chanel,[291][292] where he soon began adding minis and microminis to the offerings,[293][294][295] a surprise because Chanel herself had hated 1960s miniskirts, considering the knees to be an ugly part of the body.[296][297]
Throughout the 1980s, beginning at the end of the seventies, designers experimented with shortening heavily constructed historical dress styles, mostly from the 1950s, with fifties crinoline skirts,[298] fifties sheath skirts, and fifties bubble/puffball skirts[299] shown in above-the-knee lengths as early as 1979. Styles from the deeper past were also shortened. In the early eighties, Perry Ellis referenced the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries by altering the shape of the flouncy, hip-yoked miniskirts he'd been showing since 1979. In 1980, he bolstered them with petticoats and added stiffening to extend them out to the sides, causing some fashion writers to compare them to panniers.[300] The following year, he added stuffed-organdy padding to the skirts and referred to them as farthingales, a sixteenth-century term for a similarly padded floor-length skirt.[301][302] A far more influential example of a truncated historical skirt style came from former punk designer Vivienne Westwood. In 1985, British designer Westwood offered her first "mini-crini,"[303] an abbreviated version of the Victorian crinoline.[304] Its mini-length, bouffant silhouette inspired the puffball skirts widely presented by more established designers such as Christian Lacroix.[305][306][307] In 1989, Westwood's mini-crini was described as having combined two conflicting ideals – the crinoline, representing a "mythology of restriction and encumbrance in woman's dress", and the "equally dubious mythology of liberation" associated with the miniskirt.[308]
Sixties-revivalist Stephen Sprouse showed his first collection in 1983[309] and favored almost period-perfect shift minidresses and trapeze minidresses in graffiti prints, blacks, and searing sixties brights, including fluorescents,[310][311] with geometric paillettes and sixties-style cutouts, sometimes of peace signs.[312][313] Some of his microminis were in patent leather.[314] Unlike in the sixties, he showed these clothes with eighties shoe shapes like high-heeled pumps and Doc Martens.
A style that would be seen off and on throughout the decade but would become common in the second half of the eighties was the tight, stretch minidress worn with high-heeled eighties pumps and often padded shoulders.[315][316][317] In silhouette, this was sort of an abbreviated, less heavily constructed version of 1950s sheath skirts.[318][319] These forms of tight, blatantly seductive 1980s minis were shown on bodies that were voluptuous and/or muscular instead of thin and child-like as in the sixties.[320][321][322] When these stretch minidresses were paired with sixties-style makeup and accessories, it was a lesson in the differences between sixties minis and eighties minis.[323]
In the mid-1980s, Azzedine Alaïa began presenting mini and micromini versions of his extremely tight dress designs,[324][325][326] his anatomical seaming and occasional sheer fabrics creating a prurient effect that would never have been seen in sixties miniskirts.[327][328] His miniskirts, though, also included some that resembled flippy skating skirts[329] and others that were grass-like raffia so short they barely covered the wearer.[330] His earlier fitted, curve-accenting skirts, usually in a just-above-the-knee length that sometimes rose to the lower thigh,[331] would be very influential in the second half of the decade, spawning imitations by companies like North Beach Leather[332] and Body Glove.
During the mid- to late eighties, Patrick Kelly put his own whimsical signature on the familiar, high-heel-accompanied, tight, stretch minidresses of the decade,[333] covering them with bright buttons, bright bowties, cartoon faces, etc.[334]
For fall of 1987 and spring of '88, designers united in presenting a great proportion of miniskirts in almost all collections,[335][336] with very few mainstream designers bucking the trend.[337][338][339] Though a few designers showed these minis in somewhat sixties shapes with flat shoes or boots,[340][341][342] most showed truncated versions of eighties suits and cocktail dresses[343] with slightly narrower shoulders,[344][345] worn with high-heeled over-the-knee boots or high-heeled eighties pumps that looked like pumps from the late fifties/early sixties.[346][347][348] Dark hose were recommended for them.[349][350] Many of the new minis were stretch-fit tight,[351] and some were very short,[352][353] with Ungaro's so brief they were likened to 1950s bathing suits.[354][355] The fashion industry's miniskirt campaign was so intense that newspaper articles appeared on women considering plastic surgery on their knees to suit the new lengths.[356]
However, though there was a rush on miniskirts for a time,[357][358][359] the unanimity around mini lengths did not last long,[360][361] as women continued to consider minis just one option among the many available during the decade and did not replace their entire wardrobes with them as they had in the sixties. This 1987-88 miniskirt push, though, would help cement the mini's status as a basic item in the average woman's wardrobe for many years to come.
From the 1980s, many women began to incorporate the miniskirt into their business attire,[362][363] a trend which grew during the remainder of the century. The titular character of the 1990s television program Ally McBeal, a lawyer portrayed by Calista Flockhart, has been credited with popularising micro-skirts.[364]
The very short skirt is an element of Japanese school uniform, which since the 1990s has been exploited by young women who are part of the kogal (or gyaru) subculture as part of their look.[365][366]
2000s and 2010s
[edit]In the early 2000s, micro-minis were once again revived.[36] In 2003, Tom Ford, at that time described as one of the few designers able to effortlessly dictate changes in fashion, stated that micro-skirts would be the height of fashion for Spring/Summer 2003.[367] For fashionable wear, early 21st century microskirts were often worn with leggings or tights in order to avoid revealing too much.[364] At this time, an even briefer version of the micro-mini emerged, creating a garment sometimes described as a "belt-skirt".
![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/LG_%EC%8B%9C%EB%84%A4%EB%A7%88_3D_TV_%EC%83%88_%EB%AA%A8%EB%8D%B8_%E2%80%98%EC%86%8C%EB%85%80%EC%8B%9C%EB%8C%80%E2%80%99_%EC%98%81%EC%9E%85.jpg/220px-LG_%EC%8B%9C%EB%84%A4%EB%A7%88_3D_TV_%EC%83%88_%EB%AA%A8%EB%8D%B8_%E2%80%98%EC%86%8C%EB%85%80%EC%8B%9C%EB%8C%80%E2%80%99_%EC%98%81%EC%9E%85.jpg)
A BBC article in 2014 wrote that miniskirts remained as contemporary a garment as ever, retaining their associations with youth.[112] In an early 2010s study the department store Debenhams found that women continued buying miniskirts up to the age of 40, whilst 1983 studies showed that 33 years old was when the average woman had stopped buying them.[112] Debenham's report concluded that by the 2020s, miniskirts would be seen as a wardrobe staple for British women in their 40s and early 50s.[112]
Despite this, in the early 21st century, miniskirts are still seen as controversial, and remain subject to bans and regulation.[112] Valerie Steele told the BBC in 2014 that even though miniskirts no longer had the power to shock in most Western cultures, she would hesitate to wear one in most parts of the world.[112] She described the garment as symbolic of looking forward to future freedom and backwards to a "much more restricted past" and noted that international rises in extreme conservatism and religious fundamentalism had led to an anti-women backlash, some of which was shown through censure and criticism of women wearing "immodest" clothing.[112] In 2010, the mayor of Castellammare di Stabia in Italy ordered that police fine women for wearing "very short" miniskirts.[112][368] In the 2000s, a ban on miniskirts at a teacher's college in Kemerovo was claimed by lawyers to be against the terms of equality and human rights as laid out by the Russian constitution, whilst in Chile, the women's minister, Carolina Schmidt, described a regional governor's ban on public employees wearing minis and strapless tops as "absolute nonsense" and challenged their right to regulate other people's clothing.[368] In July 2010, Southampton city council also tried to regulate their female employees's wardrobes, telling them to avoid miniskirts and dress "appropriately."[368]
Miniskirts regularly appear in Africa as part of controversies, something that has continued since the 1960s.[369] In the early 21st century alone, instances have included a proposed ban on miniskirts in Uganda justified by claiming that they were a dangerous distraction to drivers and would cause road accidents, and in 2004, a leaflet campaign in Mombasa instructed women to dress modestly and "shun miniskirts", leading to the Kenyan government denying that they wanted a ban.[368] Since the 1990s, women perceived to be "indecently dressed" might be stripped in public often by gangs of men, but sometimes by other women.[369] These acts took place in Kenya, Zambia and elsewhere, including incidents in Johannesburg in 2008 and 2011 which led to similar attacks in various states including Sudan, Malawi, Zimbabwe and elsewhere.[369] The President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika, was forced to make a statement in 2012 after male gangs forcibly stripped women in Lilongwe and Mzuzu.[369] By this point, "miniskirt protests" regularly followed these acts of violence, with the protesters defiantly wearing miniskirts.[369] In late February 2010, a group of about 200 Ugandan women demonstrated against a so-called "miniskirt law", an anti-pornography legislation which specifically forbade women to dress "in a manner designed to sexually excite", or from wearing clothing that revealed their thighs and/or other body parts.[368] Uganda revisited their proposed ban in 2013, with Simon Lokodo, Minister of Ethics and Integrity, proposing another anti-pornography bill which would outlaw revealing "intimate parts", defined as "anything above the knee", and vowing that women who wore miniskirts would be arrested.[370] While most of these proposed bans come from male politicians, in 2009 Joice Mujuru, Zimbabwe's vice president, had to deal with rumours that she intended to ban miniskirts and trousers for women.[369] In Africa, one of the main issues with the miniskirt since the 1960s is that it is seen as representative of protest against predominantly male authority, an accusation also applied to trousers for women which are perceived as blurring the gender divide.[139][140][369]
2020s
[edit]The resurgence of controversial early 2000s trends, including visible thong strings and low-rise jeans, has extended to miniskirts, now seen on both fashion runways and social media platforms like TikTok.[371][372] The micro miniskirt trend has been associated with various fashion movements, from the mod style of the 1960s to the edgy looks of the 2000s. The skirts revival has evoked nostalgia for Y2K icons like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, making it a piece for fashion enthusiasts seeking a contemporary edge with a nod to the past.[373] With brands like Miu Miu and Miaou, the micro miniskirt has made its way back into one of the top fashion trends.[374] The micro mini made its emergence during Paris fashion week across catwalks and street style. Fashion brands like Khaite and Etro are capitalizing on the micro mini skirt trend, driven by customers' nostalgia and desire for a return to sexier styles.[371]
During Spring/Summer 22, Miu Miu debuted their utilitarian take on the micro trend.[375] It's a subversive and deconstructive take on the classic school girl pleated skirt.[376] The skirt was immediately seen on Nicole Kidman, Paloma Elsesser, Zendaya, Lily Rose Depp, Bella Hadid, and many more,[376] and went viral on TikTok and Instagram. The Miu Miu skirt set even has its own instagram account @miumiuset with 6K followers.[377] With its low rise and extreme shortness, the miniskirt captures attention, reflecting Miuccia Prada's dedication to bold and unconventional fashion statements.[373] The skirt is priced between $950 and $1,150.[373]
The Diesel belt skirt debuted in Diesel's FW22 show in Milan, with leather belts transformed into micro-mini skirts.[378] The belt is another take on the current micro mini skirt trend referencing Paris Hilton's iconic quote "skirts should be the size of a belt".[379] Inspired by the chunky, low-waisted belts of the 1990s, Diesel's creative director Glenn Martens envisioned a garment that exudes a nostalgic yet contemporary vibe.[380] A TikTok review by content creator Adrienne Reau, garnering 5.2 million views, has sparked controversy over the skirt design. The Daily Mail labeled it "'sloppy'," while Insider noted its impracticality, stating it's impossible to sit in. Diet Prada added humor, questioning if wearers are "ready to expose your buttcheeks to the breeze?"[380]
Critics express concerns over its impracticality due to its extremely short length, while its predominantly showcasing on slender models has prompted calls for more size-inclusive offerings.[381] Miu Miu's presentation of the skirt solely on slim young bodies further fueled these criticisms, although subsequent magazine covers featuring plus-sized model Paloma Elsesser and 54-year-old actress Nicole Kidman helped broaden its appeal to a wider audience.[381] Model Jessica Blair highlighted in a TikTok video how clothing options for plus-size individuals were severely limited in the early 2000s, effectively excluding them from fashion. “Clothing options for plus-size people in the early 2000s were virtually non-existent, thereby completely excluding fat people from fashion,” Blair stated.[382]
Images
[edit]-
Woman wearing a red miniskirt
-
A woman in a jean-microskirt, c. 2006
-
College girls, 1973 in Memphis.
-
Photomodel in a black leathered miniskirt at Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord.
-
Members of the Miami Dolphins cheerleading team, c. 2004
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ George, Sophie (2007). Le Vêtement de A à Z (in French). Editions Falbalas. p. 100. ISBN 978-2-9530240-1-2.
- ^ Xu, Zhuoyun (2012). China : a new cultural history. Timothy Danforth Baker, Michael S. Duke. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-15920-3. OCLC 730906510.
- ^ Fennell, Carolyn (11 January 2018). "On "Skirts" and "Trousers" in the Qin Dynasty Manuscript Making Clothes in the Collection of Peking University*". East View Press. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
- ^ Finnane, Antonia (2008). Changing clothes in China : fashion, history, nation. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-14350-9. OCLC 84903948.
- ^ a b Diamond, Norma (1997). "Defining the Miao". In Harrell, Stevan (ed.). Cultural encounters on China's ethnic frontiers (2nd pr. ed.). Seattle: University of Washington Press. pp. 98–103. ISBN 0-295-97528-8.
- ^ Steele, Apollonia. "Chinese Language Book". University of Calgary library. Retrieved 21 October 2015.
- ^ Unknown (pre-1911); Zhang, Jane (translator) (2002). "Duan Qun Miao (Mini-Skirt Miao)". University of Calgary Library. Retrieved 21 October 2015.
{{cite web}}
:|first2=
has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Cvekic, Ljilja (12 November 2007). "Prehistoric women had passion for fashion". Reuters. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
- ^ A. F. Harding (18 May 2000). European Societies in the Bronze Age. Cambridge University Press. pp. 372–. ISBN 978-0-521-36729-5.
- ^ Ghose, Tia (21 May 2015). "Remains of Bronze-Age Cultic Priestess Hold Surprise". livescience. Retrieved 19 June 2015.
- ^ П. И. Мельников-Печерский (2010). Очерки Мордвы (in Russian). Директ-Медиа. pp. 97–. ISBN 978-5-9989-4394-2.
- ^ "Why did women's skirts get shorter?".
- ^ Kline, Christina Baker (2008). Burt, Anne (ed.). About face : women write about what they see when they look in the mirror. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press. p. 60. ISBN 9781580052467.
- ^ Adams, Michael Henry (September 2007). "How Black Style became Beautiful". Ebony: 74.
- ^ "Betty Boop". Library of Congress. 1932.
- ^ Manchester, William (2 March 1975). "Style is the Changing Woman". The New York Times: 240. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
Any woman whose hem did not cover the knee was assumed, probably correctly, to be a prostitute.
- ^ "History of the Miniskirt: How Fashion's Most Daring Hemline Came to be". 7 March 2022.
- ^ a b c d e f Bassior, Jean-Noel (2005). "Stardrive: Going Network". Space patrol : missions of daring in the name of early television. Jefferson, N.C. [u.a.]: McFarland. p. 99. ISBN 9780786419111.
- ^ Stableford, Brian (2004). Historical dictionary of science fiction literature. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. p. 77. ISBN 9780810849389.
- ^ Bassior, Jean-Noel (2005). "Carol and Tonga: The Women of the Space Patrol". Space patrol : missions of daring in the name of early television. Jefferson, N.C. [u.a.]: McFarland. pp. 304–6. ISBN 9780786419111.
- ^ Bassior, Jean-Noel (2005). "Blast-Off". Space patrol : missions of daring in the name of early television. Jefferson, N.C. [u.a.]: McFarland. p. 25. ISBN 9780786419111.
- ^ Montreal Gazette, May 28, 1960, page 2
- ^ a b Staff writer (11 August 1961). "A Business in Billions in Young Styles". LIFE. Time Inc. pp. 81–83.
- ^ a b c d Gilmore, Eddie (12 June 1962). "British Girls (Ya! Ya!) Wear Skirts 8 Inches Above Knee". Independent (Long Beach, California). p. 22. Retrieved 16 November 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ John Abney, "Yahoo! The Ya-Ya!" Billings Gazette, Aug. 6, 1962, p. 6.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1957-1967". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 238. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
...[T]he mini skirt...was born on the streets among art students and Mods.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1957-1967". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 240. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
...[T]he mini...had been creeping up art students' legs since 1959.
- ^ Manchester, William (2 March 1975). "Style is the Changing Woman". The New York Times: 240. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
Styles were set by the young Mrs. Kennedy—the pillboxes, the shoes with very pointed toes and very slender heels, the hair length just below the ears and softly curled or bouffant. Skirts were a little below the knee...
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1964". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 284. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
Courrèges...skirts are the shortest in Paris – above the knee...From now on sixties fashion will revolve round bare knees...
- ^ Manchester, William (2 March 1975). "Style is the Changing Woman". The New York Times: 240. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
In 1964,...Mary Quant created the miniskirt in London.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1957-1967". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 241. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
The mini and the Beatles made their impact on America simultaneously in 1964 and were inextricably linked....[I]t seemed that...American youth had embraced London as the world's fashion capital and Quant as its best-known designer.
- ^ "Fashion: Up, Up & Away". Time. Vol. 90, no. 22. 1 December 1967. p. 81. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
Gernreich...made his mark by being...the first U.S. designer to raise skirts well above the knee...
- ^ Bender, Marylin (12 June 1964). "Questions Being Raised with Hems". The New York Times: 39. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
Rudi Gernreich and Jacques Tiffeau...have chopped daytime hems off at three inches above the knee. Mr. Gernreich admitted that he had been inspired to do so by Courrèges...
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1960-1969". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. pp. 256–257. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
...[T]he mini skirt...officially arrived in New York in 1965 with a British fashion show...The models in their thigh-high dresses stopped traffic on Broadway and in Times Square, and were seen on television all across the U.S.A.
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1966". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 292. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
1966:...a year in which...you wear skirts that show the whole length of your legs...
- ^ a b Cumming, Valerie; Cunnington, C. W.; Cunnington, P. E. (2010). The dictionary of fashion history (Revised, updated and supplemented ed.). Oxford: Berg. pp. 130–131. ISBN 9780857851437.
- ^ Whiteley, Nigel (1987). Pop design : modernism to mod. London: Design Council. p. 209. ISBN 9780850721591.
- ^ Molli, Jeanne (16 January 1964). "Paris Notes: The Trends for Spring". The New York Times: 32.
Snug dresses are...uncomfortable, [Courrèges] points out...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
In its original incarnation, the mini was different in cut, often narrow and structured with stiff seams a la André Courrèges.
- ^ Blackwell, Betsy Talbot. "Fashion". The American Peoples Encyclopedia Yearbook 1956: Events and Personalities of 1955. Chicago, Illinois, USA: Spencer Press, Inc. p. 322.
The shift, a looser, free-falling version of the sheath, was introduced by Givenchy in the fall and winter [1955] Paris collections.
- ^ Mohr, Berta. "Fashions". The New Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia Yearbook 1955. Wilfred Funk, Incorporated. pp. 133–134.
France's young Hubert de Givenchy...[showed]...his 'nothing silhouette,' a shift dress hanging straight from shoulder to hem, touching the body...only at...the hips....[A] goodly segment of the population could be observed wearing adaptations of...the gunnysack dress.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1946-1956". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 189. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
In 1954 the young Karl Lagerfeld's entry in a competition organized by the Wool Secretariat was the epitome of the youthful chemise. The style that was to be abbreviated in the sixties had arrived.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (14 September 1979). "It Was Givenchy's Hour Again". The New York Times: 6. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
Along with Balenciaga, [Givenchy] introduced the chemise in the summer of 1957.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (18 September 1970). "Saint Laurent, Valentino, Ungaro: 3 Avenues to High Fashion". The New York Times: 60. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[T]he chemise first burst upon the scene in 1957, nurtured by Givenchy and Balenciaga...[I]t made...waves...because dresses lost their belts....[I]t took a couple of years before the chemise became every woman's uniform. Hemlines had to rise...They were mid‐calf at the beginning. Rise they did, through most of the nineteen‐sixties....[A]bout half way through, it changed its name. It was called the shift.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (12 July 1978). "Seek Not the Past, Lest It Arrive". The New York Times. p. C12. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[T]he waistless chemise sounded the knell of the old order and brought fashion into the modern era.
- ^ "Dress, fall/winter 1965-66, Yves Saint Laurent". The Met Collection.
...[T]he sack dress evolved in the 1960s into a modified form, the shift...
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1958". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 254. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
The dress sloped down from the shoulders to a widened hem just below the knee, maintaining a definite geometric line through precise tailoring.
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1948-1959". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 204. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
...[W]ith his first collection,...[Saint Laurent] launched the [T]rapeze line – not too different from Dior's A line, but just different enough.
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1955". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 239. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
Dior produces his new A line, a triangle widened from a small head and shoulders to a full pleated or stiffened hem.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1955". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 230. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Dior's...'A' line consisted of coats, suits and dresses flared out into wide triangles from narrow shoulders. The waistline was the cross bar of the A and could be positioned either under the bust in an Empire manner or low down on the hips.
- ^ Doonan, Simon (1 October 2001). "Zee Future Fashion Eez Cool! Ungaro, Gernreich Still Cut It". The New York Observer. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
I...begged [Emanuel Ungaro] to decode the enigma of space-age chic...'Courrèges et moi...work[ed] for Balenciaga....Balenciaga was obsessed with cut and structure and architecture....[W]e chop 20 centimeters off the skirt, and, voila, le space age'.
- ^ "Fashion: Up, Up & Away". Time. Vol. 90, no. 22. 1 December 1967. p. 85. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
Once dresses began falling loosely from the shoulders, without a pinched-in waist, hemlines were free to rise without destroying the proportion of the line.
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1966". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 292. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
Everywhere, from the couture to the ready-to-wear, the favourite dress is the briefest triangle, taking no account of the waist.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1966". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 287. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
...[T]he mini dominated the spring collections in all the fashion centres. The silhouette fell from the neck or shoulders to a free-swinging hem...
- ^ "Fashion: Up, Up & Away". Time. Vol. 90, no. 22. 1 December 1967. p. 81. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
...Betsey Johnson...ranks as the leading popularizer of the mini in the U.S.
- ^ Blackwell, Betsy Talbot. "Fashions". The American Peoples Encyclopedia Yearbook 1967: Events and Personalities of 1966. Grolier Incorporated. p. 216.
Another shape in the 1966 closet was the hip-slung hip-skirt. It could be the...halfway-up-the-thigh miniskirt or a mere inch or two above the knee....[T]he [hip-slung hip-skirt] was practically the summer uniform.
- ^ Laver, James (1969). "Chapter Ten: The Last Thirty Years". The Concise History of Costume and Fashion. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 266. ISBN 0-684-13744-5.
...[A] young woman of today bears the closest possible resemblance to a young man of the medieval period...i.e. the doublet-and-hose of (say) 1490.
- ^ Kosbetz, Herbert (12 December 1971). "World of Seventh Ave". The New York Times: F13. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
Qiana, a silk‐like fiber in the nylon family, has come into the wide‐use area of man‐made fibers...More and more, the fiber is going into apparel fabrics...When the fiber was introduced three years ago [1968], it was confined almost entirely to the couture trade...The fiber falls in the category of nylon owing to its molecular structure...Fabrics made of the fiber offer color clarity, luster, dyeability and draping qualities equal to or better than silk fabrics, and in terms of washability, they are said to outperform any other manmade fiber.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1957-1967". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 245. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Every fashion-conscious girl was wearing the mini, flat pumps and the Vidal Sassoon haircut and pale lipstick.
- ^ Emerson, Gloria (27 January 1966). "Paris: Strictly for Small-Boned Girls". The New York Times: 37.
Throughout the collections, there were more flat-heeled shoes than ever before. No designer, it seems, would dream of showing a short short skirt with high heels.
- ^ Hasson, Rachelle. "Fashion". World Book Year Book 1968: Events of 1967. Chicago, Illinois, USA: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation. p. 338.
...[S]hoes were set on low, chunky heels, with toes newly rounded or squared. These styles, based on a wall-to-wall flatness, attracted ornamentation...
- ^ Peake, Andy (2018). "Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir". Made for Walking. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Fashion Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-7643-5499-1.
For the most part, all these boots were flat-heeled...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (21 November 1964). "Short Skirt Puts Focus on the Leg". The New York Times: 18. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
A fashion mannequin who has been wearing her skirts short...observed that high heels were out because 'you cannot run around in them without looking cheap when your hems are above your knees'.
- ^ Bender, Marylin (23 February 1970). "This Year Even the Shoe Designers are Confused". The New York Times: 46. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
'Why am I doing flats? You feel you want to move along these days...," [shoe designer Beth Levine] said. 'You feel younger in flats...'
- ^ Blackwell, Betsy Talbot. "Fashions". The American Peoples Encyclopedia 1966 Encyclopedia Yearbook: Events of 1965. Grolier Incorporated. p. 233.
Shoes were heeled low, the better to go.
- ^ Peake, Andy (2018). "The Age of the Boot". Made for Walking. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Fashion Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-7643-5499-1.
One effect of the sixties fashion 'youthquake' was a desire on the part of designers to make grown women look like little girls.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1957-1967". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 241. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
The fashion was to look as child-like as possible – coltish, long legs, flat torso and attention focused on a big baby-eyed head.
- ^ Emerson, Gloria (7 August 1965). "Saint Laurent: Bright, Fresh Clothes For a Baby-Faced Blonde". The New York Times: 11. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
...Saint Laurent...has so many girlish clothes in his collection that [model] Birgit, who is 20, looked just 14....[and] as if...she had never tried on high heels.
- ^ Zahony, Kathryn. "The Fragile Silhouette of Fashion". World Book Year Book 1968: Events of 1967. Chicago, Illinois, USA: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation. p. 337.
...[F]ashion leaders had...increasingly erased the boundaries between children and adults. More and more, grown-up women wore shoes without heels, hems that exposed not only the knee but also part of the thigh, [and] dresses without waistlines or bust seams.
- ^ Tilberis, Elizabeth, ed. (1991). "Vogue 1960-1969". Vogue 75 Years. London, England: The Condé Nast Publications Ltd.: 97.
Before long, grown women were...attempting knock-kneed childish postures, their toes turned in, in little flat shoes.
- ^ Bender, Marylin (28 May 1965). "Is This Courreges's Vision of Space-Age Women?". The New York Times: 28.
[Courrèges's]...intention is to liberate young, fast-moving moderns from corsets, high heels, and other fashion appurtenances that strike him as fossilized vestiges...
- ^ Bender, Marylin (23 February 1970). "This Year Even the Shoe Designers are Confused". The New York Times: 46. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
David Dulberg, shoe buyer of Saks Fifth Avenue,...said: '...Gals are put together differently today...They're not only slim but their whole stance is different. They're not pitched forward on high heels'...
- ^ premierludwig (19 July 2005). "Trends Of The Mid-1960s workshop". Vintage Fashion Guild. Retrieved 31 January 2017.
- ^ Livraghi, Giancarlo (2002). "The pitfalls of fashion". off-line. Retrieved 31 January 2017.
- ^ Thomas, Pauline (2014). "The 60s Mini Skirt 1960s Fashion History". Fashion-Era.com. Retrieved 31 January 2017.
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1965". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 288. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
Skirts rise to mid-thigh, girls change over from stockings to tights and the London look becomes international.
- ^ Hasson, Rachelle. "Fashion". World Book Year Book 1968: Events of 1967. Chicago, Illinois, USA: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation. p. 336.
Mini-skirts made pantie hose...popular because they not only gave the leg a hip-to-toe smoothness, but eliminated the possibility of garter-show. Women showed off their legs in peekaboo fishnets, wide windowpane effects, spidery weaves,...delicate lacy looks[,]...bold zigzag and striped patterns and whimsical floral designs....The entire color spectrum...[was] worn... For evening, legs sparkled in glittery copper, gold, and silver...
- ^ Laver, James (2002). Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd. pp. 261–2. ISBN 978-0-500-20348-4.
- ^ Peake, Andy (2018). "The Age of the Boot". Made for Walking. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Fashion Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-7643-5499-1.
During the mid-sixties...the shoe had a new ally – the kneesock.
- ^ Emerson, Gloria (4 February 1967). "Andre Courreges: A Fashion Star Can Make a Comeback, Too". The New York Times: 14. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
The Courrèges girl this spring will wear thin white wool socks...[Courrèges] staff...wore...knee socks...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (21 November 1964). "Short Skirt Puts Focus on the Leg". The New York Times: 18. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
André Courrèges...solved the leg problem ...with a boot that...stop[ped] just below the fleshy part of the calf....Golo is copying the Courrèges boot in white leather...
- ^ Peake, Andy (2018). "Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir". Made for Walking. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Fashion Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-7643-5499-1.
...[A boot that] hovered in the region between ankle and midcalf...was probably the most common fashion boot of the years 1963 to 1965.
- ^ Peterson, Patricia (23 July 1964). "Valentino's Collection is Enthusiastically Greeted". The New York Times: 14. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
...short skirts with knee-high boots...
- ^ Heathcote, Phyllis W. "Fashion and Dress". Britannica Book of the Year 1968: Events of 1967. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., William Benton. p. 342.
Boots continued to be immensely popular, the preferred style for 1967 being the 'peel-on,' knee-long 'stocking-boot' in very fine leather or leather substitute.
- ^ Peake, Andy (2018). "Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir". Made for Walking. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Fashion Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-7643-5499-1.
Cuissardes [thigh-high boots] hung around for much of the sixties. They really took off at the end of the decade...
- ^ Emerson, Gloria (17 July 1967). "The Collections are On in Rome: Coats Long, Boots High". The New York Times: 24. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
If knees don't show, it is only because most designers like legs covered with soft, narrow boots coming up to the thighs.
- ^ Hasson, Rachelle. "Fashion". World Book Year Book 1968: Events of 1967. Chicago, Illinois, USA: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation. p. 336.
Women...fancied high boots as a means of covering their new length of leg. High-rise stretch vinyl or patent leather provided glovelike sleekness...Boots stretched to the knees, to the thighs, or even to cover the entire leg like [a] fisherman's hip boots.
- ^ Emerson, Gloria (17 July 1967). "The Collections are On in Rome: Coats Long, Boots High". The New York Times: 24. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
The body boot, which covers the entire leg and is...attached to panties, is the real craze. It is worn under microdresses...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (21 November 1964). "Short Skirt Puts Focus on the Leg". The New York Times: 18. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
Jacques Tiffeau, another advocate of short skirts, used Roger Vivier shoes with laces that wrapped around the legs and ended in a bow under the knees...
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1966". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 292. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
...silver shoes laced up the leg...
- ^ Dubois, Ruth Mary. "Fashion". The Americana Annual 1971: An Encyclopedia of the Events of 1970. Americana Corporation. p. 290.
Sandals laced all the way up the leg...
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1967-68". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 296. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
The micro skirt shrinks even more...
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1969". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 300. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
Skirts are mini, knee-length, midi or maxi, 'Everything goes so long as it works for you'.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1969". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 311. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
The hemline was irrelevant; the length of a woman's skirt now depended on personal taste. The international collections endorsed variety, showing minis, midis, maxis and trousers.
- ^ Heathcote, Phyllis W. "Fashion". The 1967 Compton Yearbook: A Summary and Interpretation of the Events of 1966 to Supplement Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia. F. E. Compton Co., Division of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., William Benton. p. 254.
...[I]n 1966,...trend-setting fashion designers began to lower hemlines.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1966". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 291. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
...[T]he midi had definitely arrived...The hemline was only sixteen inches from the ground...The intention...was to train the...eye down from the mini to the midi by showing one over the other.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1968". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 308. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
By the autumn the maxi coat had arrived in London...
- ^ Heathcote, Phyllis W. "Fashion". The 1967 Compton Yearbook: A Summary and Interpretation of the Events of 1966 to Supplement Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia. F. E. Compton Co., Division of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., William Benton. p. 254.
...[L]onger skirts were still more prophetic than prevalent...
- ^ Emerson, Gloria (17 January 1968). "On the Rome Scene, Knee is Seen". The New York Times: 50. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
Women...swear that they simply cannot carry off...dresses that flop around the shins...
- ^ Winkelman, Anne. "Fashion". Standard Reference Encyclopedia Yearbook 1968. New York, USA: Standard Reference Library, Inc. p. 218.
...[A]lthough the trousers took, the midis and maxis didn't – most fashion-wise women had theirs shortened to...three to five inches above the knees...
- ^ Bender, Marylin (12 June 1964). "Questions Being Raised with Hems". The New York Times: 39. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
Whether or not a woman intends to expose her lower thighs next fall, she is undoubtedly discovering that she has to do something immediately about the hemlines on last summer's clothes lest she look dowdy.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[In] the late 1960s,...minis were de rigueur and lots of grown women as well as kids followed the fashion and shortened their hems several inches above the knee.
- ^ Barmash, Isidore (15 March 1970). "Minis or Midis? Girls and Stores Dying to Know". The New York Times: 137. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Women who not long ago gnashed their teeth over the miniskirt, wondering if they dared to imitate their daughters and wear it, finally decided only a relatively few months ago that they would risk it. The result was the moderate‐mini, the one to two‐inch rise above the knee, which is pretty much what is being worn on Main Street America today.
- ^ Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly (9 September 2014). "The Midi Skirt, Divider of Nations". The Atlantic. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Today, the term 'midi' is applied to knee-length skirts as often as tea-length skirts, and pencil skirts as well as flowing A-lines. But it originally denoted a specific, unforgiving shape: not mid-leg, but mid-calf, widening from the waist to four inches below the knee.
- ^ Salmans, Sandra (25 August 1974). "Seventh Avenue". The New York Times: 96. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
Although the latest [1974] look—known as the Big Look...—is decidedly longer than recent hemlines, both its proponents and its adversaries say that any resemblance to the midi is purely coincidental. 'You can't compare it to the midi, which was just a longer skirt,' maintains Norman Wechsler, president of Saks Fifth Avenue.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (4 February 1974). "Why Nobody's Paying Much Attention to Spring Couture". The New York Times: 24. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
What makes [1974 long skirts] different from the long skirts of 1970? They're wider and consequently, more graceful and easier to wear.
- ^ Dubois, Ruth Mary (9 March 1971). "Fashion: The War of the Hemlines". The Americana Annual 1971: An Encyclopedia of the Events of 1970. Americana Corporation. p. 291. ISBN 0-7172-0102-3.
For spring 1970 most American and European designers featured longer lengths. They caught on in London and Paris, but not in the United States...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (25 April 1987). "Women are Stealing a March on Short Skirts". The New York Times: 1. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The sudden drop in hemlines in 1970 caused a revolt in this country against fashion dictatorship....In the collections for fall 1970, hemlines descended abruptly, by as much as 18 inches, from mid-thigh to the lower calf....The protests were immediate. Women declared that they would no longer be dictated to by fashion designers. They refused to buy long skirts. Stores suffered and many manufacturers went out of business.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1968". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 308. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
American women had not accepted the midi or maxi hemlines, preferring the leggy mini...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (25 April 1987). "Women are Stealing a March on Short Skirts". The New York Times: 1. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Fashionable women everywhere turned to pants....Trousers continued as part of the fashion uniform...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (7 October 1968). "Even the Restaurateurs Concede That Pants are Fashionable". The New York Times: 54. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
Pants...have the endorsement of...Yves Saint Laurent, who devoted a good part of his last Paris collection to them and now is selling them like blue jeans...The wider cut to the legs has won many adherents.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Foreman, Katya (21 October 2014). "Short but sweet: The miniskirt". BBC. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
- ^ Miles, Barry (2009). The British invasion: the music, the times, the era. New York, NY: Sterling. p. 203. ISBN 9781402769764.
- ^ a b c d e f Steele, Valerie (2000). Fifty years of fashion : new look to now (English ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 51–64. ISBN 9780300087383.
- ^ a b c d "Garments worn by Marit Allen". Victoria and Albert Museum. 13 July 2011. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
- ^ a b c d e Polan, Brenda; Tredre, Roger (2009). "André Courrèges". The great fashion designers (English ed.). Oxford: Berg Publishers. pp. 123–125. ISBN 9780857851741.
- ^ Horton, Ros; Simmons, Sally (2006). Women who changed the world : fifty inspirational women who shaped history. London: Quercus. p. 170. ISBN 9781847240262.
- ^ a b c Polan, Brenda; Tredre, Roger (2009). "Mary Quant". The great fashion designers (English ed.). Oxford: Berg Publishers. pp. 103–105. ISBN 9780857851741.
- ^ Kennedy, Carol (2003). From Dynasties to Dotcoms : The Rise, Fall and Reinvention of British Business in the Past 100 Years. London: Kogan Page Ltd. p. 122. ISBN 9780749441272.
- ^ "The stories behind five global fashion trends". BBC. 2019. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
- ^ a b Cartner-Morley, Jess (2 December 2000). "Chelsea girl who instigated a new era". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
- ^ Carter, Ernestine (1977). The changing world of fashion: 1900 to the present. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p. 213. ISBN 9780297773498.
- ^ a b Lester, Richard (2008). John Bates : fashion designer. Woodbridge, Suffolk: ACC Editions. p. 43. ISBN 9781851495702.
- ^ "In pictures: Royal Mail's British design classic stamps". The Guardian. 13 January 2009. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
- ^ Peterson, Patricia (3 August 1964). "Courrèges Is Star of Best Show Seen So Far". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
- ^ Lester, Richard (2008). John Bates : fashion designer. Woodbridge, Suffolk: ACC Editions. p. 38. ISBN 9781851495702.
- ^ Lester, Richard (2008). John Bates : fashion designer. Woodbridge, Suffolk: ACC Editions. p. 45. ISBN 9781851495702.
- ^ Breward, Christopher; Lister, Jenny; Gilbert, David, eds. (2006). Swinging sixties : fashion in London and beyond ; 1955 – 1970. London: V&A Publ. p. 31. ISBN 9781851774845.
- ^ "Dress of the Year walkthrough". Fashion Museum, Bath. Bath & North East Somerset Council 2015. 10 November 2014. Retrieved 21 October 2015.
- ^ Staff writer. "Barbara Hulanicki and Biba". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 21 October 2015.
- ^ Staff writer (1 December 1967). "Fashion: Up, Up & Away". TIME.(subscription required)
- ^ "Fashion: Stopping the Escalation". Time. 5 August 1966. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
The miniskirt? 'Dégoütant' [disgusting], snapped Coco Chanel....And so Chanel stayed Chanel, with neatly fitted suits just covering the kneecap.
- ^ Pedro Vasconcelos (13 April 2023). "Viva la mini". Vogue. Retrieved 22 November 2023.
- ^ Shrimpton, Jean (1990). An Autobiography.
- ^ Kimball, Duncan (2002-09-12). Jean Shrimpton in Melbourne. Milesago article on Jean Shrimpton also known as jean shrimpTON, modified "Thursday, 12 September 2002 10:48:55". Retrieved from http://www.milesago.com/Features/shrimpton.htm.
- ^ Hasson, Rochelle. "Fashion". The 1967 World Book Year Book: Events of 1966. Field Enterprises Educational Corporation. p. 338.
The new short-short skirt fashion resulted in mixed emotions everywhere. In the United States, some schools found it necessary to regulate permissible skirt lengths.
- ^ "The Mini vs. Midi, Continued". The New York Times: 54. 27 March 1970. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
In March, 1966, a Sindlinger survey found that 44.9 per cent of the persons interviewed considered the miniskirt 'bad for the morals of the younger generation.' The latest survey [1970] finds that only 35.4 per cent hold that view.
- ^ Adburgham, Alison (1967-10-10). Mary Quant. Interview with Alison Adburgham, The Guardian, 10 October 1967. Retrieved from http://century.guardian.co.uk/1960-1969/Story/0,6051,106475,00.html.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Ross, Robert (2008). "Engendered Acceptance and Rejection". Clothing: A Global History. Polity. pp. 162–163. ISBN 9780745631868.
- ^ a b c d Ivaska, Andrew M. (9 September 2004). "'Anti-mini Militants Meet Modern Misses': Urban Style, Gender, and the Politics of 'National Culture' in 1960s Dar es Salaam, Tanzania". In Allman, Jean (ed.). Fashioning Africa: Power and the Politics of Dress. Indiana University Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN 0253111048.
- ^ a b "Короче! История мини-юбки в советском кино: "Бриллиантовая рука", "Служебный роман", "Афоня"". Culture.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- ^ a b "А был ли секс? Как носили мини-юбки в СССР". Wday.ru (in Russian). 21 April 2021. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- ^ "МАРКИЗА, Елена Соколова, Елена Молчанова, Светлана Молчанова - хард-рок-группа из 80-х". Guitaristka.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- ^ "Как одеваться и вести себя в Дагестане, расскажет памятка для туристов" (in Russian). Вестник АТОР. 17 June 2023. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1978). "1970". In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. p. 319. ISBN 0-14-00-4955-X.
In the summer Vogue announces, 'The long skirt is here – and the first Vogue with not a short skirt in sight'.
- ^ Emerson, Gloria (29 January 1970). "From Ungaro, Soft Angles and Curves". The New York Times: 40. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
...[L]onger skirts...are here. While the big pacifier in Paris is that a woman can choose from many different lengths, the truth is that all skirts are inches longer.
- ^ "Even for Its Inventor, Miniskirt is Dead". The New York Times: 58. 23 April 1970. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
Mary Quant...showed a collection of midis and maxis — and not a single mini...
- ^ Christopher Booker (1980) The Seventies
- ^ Holt, Patricia (22 September 1995). "Making Ms.Story / The biography of Gloria Steinem, a woman of controversy and contradictions". The San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ Greer, Germaine (1969-02). Germaine Greer in Oz, February 1969.
- ^ Curtis, Charlotte (1 January 1971). "The Midi Laid an Egg in 1970, but It Did Hatch Other Fashions". The New York Times: 33. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[V]irtually anybody can see...a vast number of bare knees...on any street.
- ^ Klemesrud, Judy (19 January 1971). "Women's Revolt? Harris Poll Detects 'Real Storm Signals'". The New York Times: 32. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
...[A] survey, conducted...by Louis Harris and Associates, studied the views of some 3,000 women and 1,000 men throughout the country....[Respondents] reject the midiskirt length by a thumping 65 to 32 percent, and endorse the old‐fashioned mini by 59 to 39 percent....[T]hree in four women feel that they are being manipulated on fashions, and that they don't like it.
- ^ Klemesrud, Judy (25 September 1970). "...Or You Belong to One of the Protest Groups". The New York Times: 57. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
...[A]nti‐midi groups...have proliferated since the midiskirt emerged last spring as a serious threat to women who like their skirts short — or at least want a choice of lengths when they walk into a store to buy a dress.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (13 July 1970). "Madame Butterfly Look Flutters Through Rome Fashion Shows". The New York Times: 34. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
...American tourists [in Europe] are apparently the last holdouts [in wearing miniskirts]. They scurry around in their minidresses...Even the [US] fashion contingent is reluctant to take to midiskirts.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (6 March 1970). "The Midi Begins to Sell, but Will It Become a Fashion or Fad?". The New York Times: 46. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...Mrs. Eddy of Saks Fifth Avenue and Mrs. Jane Stark, vice-president of Lord & Taylor, report that, in their suburban stores, women who were leery about pants for everyday wear are now overcoming their inhibitions....'We're selling an awful lot of pants,' says Liz Claiborne...
- ^ Curtis, Charlotte (1 January 1971). "The Midi Laid an Egg in 1970, but It Did Hatch Other Fashions". The New York Times: 33. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[S]uddenly there were knickers, gauchos, and pants, pants, pants.
- ^ Donovan, Carrie (28 August 1977). "Feminism's Effect on Fashion". The New York Times: 225. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
'When we were told to give up our miniskirts for midis,' [Gloria Steinem] says, 'there was a semi‐conscious boycott on the part of American women. We were fed up with being manipulated. We now wanted to make our own decisions on hundreds of things, not have them handed down from on high'.
- ^ "The Minneapolis Look". Time. Vol. 98, no. 7. 16 August 1971. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
[Bill] Blass...says that 'we learned last year the best we can do is make suggestions'.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (8 February 1971). "Zigzag Hemlines are Shown". The New York Times: 28. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
The French couturiers have recognized the right of contemporary women to show their knees....Minis abound for the women who still want them, though the majority of hemlines hover about the knees. Though the Paris designers foisted long skirts upon the world a year ago [1970], they've had the gallantry to retreat.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (10 March 1970). "Saint Laurent's American Sportswear". The New York Times: 46.
'Yves [Saint Laurent] hasn't abandoned short skirts,' [Mary Russell] added, pointing to a micro‐mini in suede that's supposed to rest on the hips and is fringed up to the point of decency.
- ^ Crenshaw, Mary Ann (28 December 1971). "About as Mini as It Can Be". The New York Times: 34. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
Karl Lagerfeld, in his spring collection for Chloe, has produced...maximum micro‐dresses...Sonia Rykiel's dresses for spring and summer are midthigh length.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (30 July 1971). "For Daring, There's Givenchy". The New York Times: 14. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
Hubert de Givenchy...presents a bevy of micromini dresses ...
- ^ "The Midi's Compensations". Time. Vol. 95, no. 23. 8 June 1970.
Valentino was first with the layered look (either a shorter skirt worn underneath a midi coat, or the skirt itself divided into tiers of different lengths)...[Jacques] Tiffeau has wrapped a deeply slashed camel-colored midi over a maroon mini skirt...Bill Blass settles for the double hemline for daywear...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (30 July 1971). "For Daring, There's Givenchy". The New York Times: 14. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
...Givenchy's micromini dresses...show a lot of leg, though they are concealed by such things as a purple leather coat to the floor.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (12 March 1970). "They Came, They Saw, They Loved and Bought Valentino's Midi". The New York Times: 66. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
...[L]ong coats or skirts that open up in front to show shorter ones underneath...let you move a little better.
- ^ Emerson, Gloria (19 January 1970). "The Long and the Short of It are Shown in Valentino's Hems". The New York Times: 32. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Valentino really likes the look of midi skirts slashed open in front to show a much shorter skirt underneath it. The same effect is seen when he does wrap skirts with deep slits at the side.
- ^ Sweetinburgh, Thelma. "Fashion and Dress". 1973 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1972. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. p. 295. ISBN 0852292821.
...[H]emlines surged upward to mid-thigh and above, reestablishing the mini-dress...The little girl dress also reappeared, with short puff sleeves and sash or bow belts....Soles became thicker and thicker, first in wedge and then in platform shape, while heels rose to 4...inches or more, but remained heavy.
- ^ Ginger, Henry (7 December 1970). "Yves Saint Laurent Brings on the Mini". The New York Times: 58. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
...Yves Saint Laurent...includes pleated mini shorts that are so brief...they would be worn only by the young...The pleats in the shorts make them look like skirts....They were shown with high-heeled wedge-soled shoes that had open toes and ankle straps...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (30 July 1971). "For Daring, There's Givenchy". The New York Times: 14. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
...Givenchy shows hot pants.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (28 January 1971). "Givenchy: Elegance and More". The New York Times: 41. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
Givenchy tucks shorts under his skinny daytime suits and dresses and sometimes sends the shorts out alone unabashed.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (22 January 1971). "Valentino Revivifies Fashions of 40s". The New York Times: 45. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
The red coat covered navy shorts, the navy coat red ones....Valentino made the idea of shorts‐under‐skirts look new...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (30 December 1979). "It Gets Wearing". The New York Times: DX12. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
During the winter of 1970, women wore shorts — 'hot pants,' protesting a hemline drop from mid‐thigh to midcalf.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (8 December 1970). "It's More Dazzle for the New Valentino". The New York Times: 56. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Some of the shorts...go under dresses—and some are accompanied by long coats.
- ^ "The Minneapolis Look". Time. Vol. 98, no. 7. 16 August 1971. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
After the mini-midi debacle of last year, hemlines will generally hover cautiously around the knee.
- ^ Curtis, Charlotte (1 January 1971). "The Midi Laid an Egg in 1970, but It Did Hatch Other Fashions". The New York Times: 33. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Bergdorf's customers demanded and got skirts covering their knees. They didn't want them down around their calves.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1974". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 337. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Kenzo anticipated a major change this winter by creating a full, circular skirt, easily caught by the wind...The replacement of the short, kicky skirt by the longer, fuller style was the most important change in the silhouette...[T]he hemline was anywhere from 3 inches below the knee to the ankle.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (28 July 1973). "Couture Scorecard: Good is Quite Good". The New York Times: 28. Retrieved 26 August 2024.
Hemlines that just cover the knees are...universal. What they prove is, for sure, the miniskirt is dead.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (4 February 1974). "Why Nobody's Paying Much Attention to Spring Couture". The New York Times: 24. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Courrèges was the only designer to show short ones and they seemed like period pieces.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (25 April 1987). "Women are Stealing a March on Short Skirts". The New York Times: 1. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[S]kirt hemlines quietly began their descent until mid-calf length became commonplace in the 1970s...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (21 April 1974). "Clothes for Fall: Mostly Casual". The New York Times: 54. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Gayle Kirkpatrick offers a choice of hemlines:...below the knee or midcalf....[T]he shorter skirts look safe, the long ones more fashionable.
- ^ Dorsey, Hebe (27 January 1977). "From Paris, Skirting the Issue with Ruffles and Flourishes". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[Saint Laurent] added, 'I don't think short skirts will ever come back'.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (11 November 1974). "On 7th Avenue Halston Dares to Bare the Knee". The New York Times: 24. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[T]he miniskirt is...still prevalent...today too, according to store executives from all over the country...'I'm having a hard time getting my secretary out of short dresses as it is,' said the fashion director of a large store in the Southwest.
- ^ Klemesrud, Judy (25 June 1974). "Mini Still Reigns, But Are Its Days Numbered?". The New York Times: 33. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
It is supposed to be so out of style, so passé. Everybody who is anybody supposedly wears her skirts below the knees and longer...Take a walk any day...between 44th and 57th Streets. You will see so many miniskirts that you will wonder if all those 'savvy' fashion experts have been holed up in some cave in Samoa....The majority of women are in pants, of course. But most of the skirts on the younger women are minis — not those extreme microminis that barely covered the panty line circa 1969 but the old familiar minis about four or five inches above the knees.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (11 November 1974). "On 7th Avenue Halston Dares to Bare the Knee". The New York Times: 24. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Halston was...promulgating a knee‐baring fashion he called 'the skimp.'...[I]t bears an ineluctable resemblance to the miniskirt of yore....The endorsement of kneebaring skirts by a designer of Halston's stature could only confuse customers who were gradually being convinced they should hide their knees, most retailers agreed.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (17 June 1977). "From Halston, a Reprise of the Tunic". The New York Times: A24. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
[Halston's] mannequins almost always wore heavy knitted tights with short tunic tops....Back in 1974 when Halston had another go at reviving short skirts, he called them 'the skimp' and likened them to Florentine tunics.
- ^ Dorsey, Hebe (14 November 1976). "Fashion". The New York Times: 239. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The hottest news from the Paris spring prêt‐à‐porter collections is the mini. And the man who put it back in the spotlight is Kenzo....There were short skirts with balloon tops, caught under a low belt; some skirts then swirled out, but others, neat and tapered, were just little wraparounds.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (27 October 1976). "A Rousing Show by Saint Laurent". The New York Times: 65. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
...Kenzo showed virtually everything short....[A] number of the dresses were hiked up and bloused over a hip belt to [become] micro. Some of them were really below the knees....[S]hapes are usually very big and loose, gathered at the shoulders....[T]he micro‐minis...are in Polynesian prints...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (29 March 1977). "At Lagerfeld's Paris Show, the 18th Century Goes Modern". The New York Times: 41. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Lagerfeld...made the question of skirt length irrelevant. He showed them all, from very short to very long....What is very apparent about the dresses is their fullness....They're smocklike affairs...If they're short, you can see the boot tops. The boots come up over the knee...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (6 April 1977). "Mini Skirts Make Maximum Impact in Paris". The New York Times: 66. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The short skirt story is gaining momentum in fashion here. It began a year ago on the runways of such designers of ready‐to‐wear clothes as Kenzo and lesser lights, including Ter & Bantine. Bulky sweaters that cupped the buttocks and brief, knitted dresses were shown over knitted tights...
- ^ Finley, Ruth, ed. (1 December 1976). "Paris Pret-a-Porter: 'Free Choice'". Fashion International. V (3). New York, NY, USA: FI Publications, Inc.: 1.
...[T]he '77 mini is newly proportioned with hip focus via belting, banding, wrapping or elasticizing – and ranges from giant billowing batwing blousons (Kenzo) to 20s flappers (Dorothy Bis).
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (28 November 1976). "Paris Report". The New York Times: 237. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
[The mini']s most dramatic form is the voluminous smock that Kenzo devised, always belted at the hips. But other designers showed shirts as dresses...
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (9 October 1977). "Fashion Notes". The Washington Post. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
...[S]ome will top their leg covers with mini tunics or big bubble sweaters, and that's all.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (1 December 1976). "Miniskirts – Surprise, Surprise". The New York Times: 66. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
Today's minis are bigger and blousier than the ones around the last time...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (6 April 1977). "Mini Skirts Make Maximum Impact in Paris". The New York Times: 66. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Most designers were careful to present clothes in at least three different lengths: above the knee, or mini; calf length, or standard, and somewhere around the lower part of the calf or the top of the ankles...
- ^ Sweetinburgh, Thelma (9 March 1977). "Fashion and Dress". 1977 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1976. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. p. 340. ISBN 0-85229-325-9.
In the fall,...some Paris houses...set off shock waves by reintroducing the mini...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (1 December 1976). "Miniskirts – Surprise, Surprise". The New York Times: 66. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
Kenzo's miniskirts are turning up in New York, but even the women who wear them don't think they're going to take over the fashion scene....Dawn Willis...doesn't think minis will take over because 'American women are too into pants'.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (16 April 1978). "Message is Clear, but How Will It Be Received?". The New York Times: 70. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Two years ago [1976] Paris designers made a concerted effort to bring back knee‐baring clothes and it went practically unnoticed.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1976-1986". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 343. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
The heyday of punk was 1976-8.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (21 April 1981). "The Mini Revival: Options for a New Age". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
In London the black plastic mini has been part of the punk uniform...for the past four years [1977-1981].
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (26 April 1977). "Punks Without a Cause". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
They wear...ripped garbage can liners, fishnet hose and stiletto heels.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1976-1986". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 344. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Punks...walked down the King's Road in mini tartan kilts,...torn PVC, leather and dustbin-liners....They wore plastic, rubber or leather clothes.
- ^ Menkes, Suzy (9 March 1986). "Fashion and Dress: The Street Scene – Pop, Glam, Androgyny". 1986 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1985. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. p. 251. ISBN 0-85229-437-9.
The sexist woman – tight black leather skirt and spiky high heels – had been a part of punk.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (8 December 1979). "A Bath House Turned Disco". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
...[T]he nouvelle vague [New Wave] crowd dressed a la...1960s...One girl...wears a Courreges mini with short, white Courreges boots.
- ^ Owen, Morfudd (26 January 2019). "Going Underground: Mod Revival Fanzines – In Pictures". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
- ^ Morrisroe, Patricia (5 April 2004). "House of Sprouse: The Punk Glamour God". New York. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
Sprouse...transformed Harry..., creating clothes from ripped tights, T-shirts, and objects he picked up off the streets....In 1978, he photo-printed a picture he'd taken of TV scan lines onto a piece of fabric, which he then designed as a dress for Debbie Harry. She wore it in the video for her No. 1 hit 'Heart of Glass'...
- ^ Morrisroe, Patricia (5 April 2004). "House of Sprouse: The Punk Glamour God". New York. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
...Stephen Sprouse was working for Halston in the early seventies...Sprouse loved Carnaby Street and miniskirts. He wanted to see women's legs again, and pestered Halston constantly about it....[I]n 1974, Halston let Sprouse have his way....[T]hey created what became known as the Skimp.
- ^ "Elvis Costello – Chelsea". genius.com. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (16 April 1978). "The Message is Clear, but How Will It Be Received". The New York Times: 70. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
It may be that there is a latent desire for miniskirts and padded shoulders....The way most store people see [miniskirts]...is under a tie‐on longer skirt that can be removed for dancing.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (16 October 1979). "Skirting the Mini". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
In the past week of showings of ready-to-wear for next spring, [fashion buyers] had seen lots of short, short skirts....Karl Lagerfeld, who designs for Chloe, showed the shortest miniskirts....[H]is minis with padded shoulders...are a breed apart....His minis...were served up in three categories: a single layer that barely covered the fanny, and double-tiered and triple-tiered skirts that still stopped above the knee.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (19 October 1979). "At Paris Showings, Both Creativity and Confusion". The New York Times: A20. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Along with Claude Montana, [Thierry Mugler] is the favorite of the avant‐garde. Both were leaders of the outer‐space brigade and the return to the 1960s miniskirted look. They were not alone....Lagerfeld favored an abbreviated skirt that was little more than a ruffle around the hips, and a brief one at that.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1979". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 367. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Norma Kamali...and Perry Ellis introduced the short rah-rah skirt, worn with short-sleeved jumpers, knee-high socks and pedal pushers.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1980". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 371. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Kenzo, Chloé and others now showed pretty, floral printed-cotton versions of the rah-rah introduced by Kamali and Ellis in 1979.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (16 April 1978). "The Message is Clear, but How Will It Be Received?". The New York Times: 70. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[T]his time the chief proponent [of knee-baring skirts] — an occasional version is offered by other houses — is Yves Saint Laurent.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (12 April 1978). "Saint Laurent: The Clothes are the Message". The New York Times: C14. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
...[A] short red two‐tiered minidress ...[and a] few other above-the-knee chemiselike styles appeared,...slip-like affairs...
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1980". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 373. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Op art returned to London's streets, coinciding with a musical revival led by [ska revival bands] The Specials and Madness...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (13 April 1979). "French Ready-to-Wear: The Ever-Changing Message". The New York Times: A12. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
Ready‐to-wear designers...are busily repeating such successes of the 1960s as the knitted shift and the miniskirt.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (13 October 1979). "Knee Highs". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Some Paris designers have taken...a backward glance at the 1960s. What they have come up with for the opening ready-to-wear showings of 1980s hot-weather fashions are skinny miniskirts and other styles spun off from the 1960s fashions of Courreges, Rudi Gernreich and Paco Rabanne....France Andrevie...must have researched the short-cropped, tube-shaped dresses of Rudi Gernreich, the minis of Courreges and the vinyl and metallic hinged designs of Paco Rabanne...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (6 February 1979). "Paris Couture Enhances the Past". The New York Times: C5. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
...Andre Courreges...is now reviving his look of the 1960s.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (16 October 1979). "Minis and the 60s: Paris Fashions Look Back". The New York Times: B13. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
The news from Paris is clear on one thing: the mini is back....Emanuel Ungaro...showed plenty of minidresses.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (15 October 1979). "In Paris, High Fashion's Latest Trip is to Outer Space". The New York Times: B14. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
...[Thierry Mugler's] cavewomen wear minidresses with shredded hems....Jean Claude de Luca...shows fringed miniskirts in leather.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (27 April 1979). "With Spring in the Air, Designers Turn to Fall". The New York Times: B4. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
...[Willi Smith] sprinkled [his collection] liberally with miniskirts...'Cheerleader' skirts...snapped on over knitted polo shirts and matching footless tights...Other miniskirts were in the pile fabric that teddy bears wear...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (14 September 1979). "It Was Givenchy's Hour Again". The New York Times: 6. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
Only one dress was greeted with dead silence: a printed satin, shirred up the center, that bared the knees. It was the length that was distracting. The audience didn't know what to make of it.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (27 July 1978). "YSL Reintroduces the Grand-Entrance Era". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...pencil-slim skirts...
- ^ Dullea, Georgia (22 October 1979). "Fashion Revivals: Are the 1980s Really Ready for the 1960s?". The New York Times: B6. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Miniskirts on the runway are fashion's way of making a little noise. The idea, as one Seventh Avenue observer put it, is that 'women will be so horrified that they will accept knee‐length skirts, which they have been resisting.' Already some women are weakening....'A few inches shorter,' they say, cautiously, 'but below the knee'.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (31 March 1978). "At Milan Showings, the Clothes for Winter are Somber". The New York Times: A16. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Knees are covered by skirts that frequently stop an inch or so below. Not exactly minis, but a bit shorter than last season.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (25 October 1978). "Hourglass for Spring". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The new proportion demands a hemline cut off an inch, sometimes two, below the knee. Some designers are showing them longer, but it is now obvious that the shorter skirt is the coming thing....'By next fall [1979],' predicts [Bloomingdale's Kal] Ruttenstein, the mid-calf skirt will not look fashionable.
- ^ Hendelson, Marion (9 March 1980). "Fashion". Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia 1980 Yearbook: Events of 1979. Funk & Wagnalls, Inc. p. 164. ISBN 0-8343-0034-6.
In colors, bright reds, blues, greens, oranges, and pinks took the lead over the long-popular neutrals.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (16 November 1978). "The Spring Uniform". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[E]veryone will want to own...bright colors...because they haven't worn [them] in a long while.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (16 November 1978). "The Spring Uniform". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The ingredients are a slim skirt with slits front, back or sideways, cut off somewhere just below the knee...slim, slit skirts that are short - but still below the knee...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Having the miniskirt as an option is one of the big contrasts with the late 1960s, when minis were de rigueur and lots of grown women as well as kids followed the fashion and shortened their hems several inches above the knee.
- ^ Buck, Genevieve (8 April 1987). "The Skinny on the Mini, with Dark Hose and...Legs Together". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
In the '60s, women kept shortening their skirts inch by inch so they could stay 'in fashion.' Each season, skirts had to be a certain number of inches above the knees...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (21 April 1981). "The Mini Revival: Options for a New Age". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[O]bserves Bernie Ozer, of Associated Merchandising Corp. '...There is no suggestion that everyone has to wear one'.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (27 February 1983). "The Directions of the Innovators". The New York Times: 132. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Things were different in [the 1960s]. There seemed to be just one road for fashion – onward. Today,...things have changed. Short and long skirts coexist, just as skirts and trousers do.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (21 April 1981). "The Mini Revival: Options for a New Age". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
And it is an optional item to suit one's mood, to be worn alternately with pants, which can be any length or shape, or a long folkloric skirt....[U]nlike before, the mini is only part of the high fashion wardrobe...[O]bserves Bernie Ozer, of Associated Merchandising Corp. 'It is strictly an alternative'...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (21 April 1981). "The Mini Revival: Options for a New Age". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Perry Ellis...has shown both very long and very short skirts...'[L]ength is not an issue. Both the long and the short really look beautiful'.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Sasha Cutter, 13,...was wearing a Kamali Rah-Rah skirt in sweat-shirt fabric with a Polo sweater over her leotard. She's just as happy in a long Lauren prairie skirt, she said, or jeans.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1983". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 387. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Despite the variety of hemlines offered in all the fashion capitals for daywear, the knee-length version prevailed.
- ^ Schiro, Anne-Marie (29 March 1985). "On Paris Streets, Fashion is Up-to-Date". The New York Times: A22. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Many well-dressed French women are appearing in...a pencil-slim skirt that just covers the knee.
- ^ Sweetinburgh, Thelma (9 March 1974). "Fashion and Dress". 1974 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1973. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. p. 312. ISBN 0-85229-294-5.
...[J]ust below the knee seemed to be the most popular hemline level...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (17 February 1981). "Hemlines: Trend is Down, but Anything is Acceptable". The New York Times: B10. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...Marc Bohan...has included above-the-knee party dresses in his collections for Christian Dior for several seasons.
- ^ Buck, Genevieve (8 April 1987). "The Skinny on the Mini, with Dark Hose and...Legs Together". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
...[T]hese `87 minis are a new breed. They are stretchy and supple and sexy. Or, they are bubbly, flared, pouffed, belled. They are, in a word, varied.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (8 April 1981). "In Paris, Fashion Incursions from Abroad". The New York Times: C18. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Valentino...showed dresses that were mini length in front and swept back to form bustle trains.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1986". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 396. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
...[L]egs...were flaunted under puff-ball and tutu hemlines...
- ^ Sweetinburgh, Thelma (9 March 1984). "Fashion and Dress". 1984 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1983. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. p. 375. ISBN 0-85229-417-4.
...a flaring miniskirt in bright coloured tulle...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (21 September 1979). "Armani, Fendi, Missoni and Versace: The Italian Designers Come to Town". The New York Times: A18. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[A]bove‐the‐knee hemlines and extravagantly padded shoulders...marked the proceedings.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (16 October 1979). "Skirting the Mini". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Karl Lagerfeld's...minis with padded shoulders...are a breed apart.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (4 August 1981). "Couture: Styles of Splendor". The New York Times: C6. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
Saint Laurent...bares the knees and pads his shoulders...
- ^ Buck, Genevieve (8 April 1987). "The Skinny on the Mini, with Dark Hose and...Legs Together". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
If short becomes the fashion, one of the first to know it and put it into production will be Dallas designer Victor Costa...[H]is all-time best-seller is an interpretation of a dress that he himself designed in the '60s. 'He gave it a little more shoulder, stuffed some petticoats beneath and – voila, it's today,' says [Costa colleague Bob] Miller.
- ^ Donovan, Carrie (31 January 1982). "Created with a Leg to Stand On". The New York Times: 68. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Influential designers in Paris, Milan and New York have included decidedly shortened hemlines in their spring collections....anywhere from one to...three inches above the knee...[I]n Valentino's case,...[a]ll are worn with high heel[s]...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Farah Naim, 18,...was wearing a black leather zip-front miniskirt (from Commander Salamander), dark hose and salmon-pink satin bridesmaid's pumps from a thrift shop.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1986". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 396. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
High heels drew attention to legs...under puff-ball and tutu hemlines...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (21 April 1981). "The Mini Revival: Options for a New Age". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The mini revival...stirred more than a year ago [early 1980] when...big, sweatery mini-dresses were picked up by kids who wore them with thick, colorful pantyhose.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Vickie Fitzgerald, 18, occasionally wears a mini...For now, she wears tights, but expects that once she has a tan she'll go barelegged.
- ^ Finley, Ruth, ed. (1 May 1980). "Paris Pret-a-Porter – Fall/Winter". Fashion International. VIII (8). New York, NY, USA: 3.
The mini is best with short cable stitch knit tops worn with thick wooly tights, soft suede boots.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (21 April 1981). "The Mini Revival: Options for a New Age". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The 1981 mini...is being worn...with tights and flats or flat boots...[T]he miniskirt worn with romantic blouses with full sleeves and soft crushed boots...
- ^ Donovan, Carrie (31 January 1982). "Created with a Leg to Stand On". The New York Times: 68. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
The tinted or patterned stocking accomplishes two things at once, drawing subtle attention to the legs and supplying a bit of attractive camouflage. For what does look decidedly démodé is a long stretch of bare, unadorned leg beneath the shortened hemline.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Sahara Woodell, 18,...was wearing a lace-trimmed cotton miniskirt with a jean jacket and combat boots.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1979". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 367. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Norma Kamali...and Perry Ellis introduced the short rah-rah skirt, worn with...pedal pushers.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (27 April 1979). "With Spring in the Air, Designers Turn to Fall". The New York Times: B4. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
...Willi Smith...'[c]heerleader' skirts...over...footless tights...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (14 October 1987). "Southern Exposures". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Vivienne Westwood...showed bands of fabric not much wider than a belt, under which models wore...'panties'...that looked like bike shorts.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (17 February 1981). "Hemlines: Trend is Down, but Anything is Acceptable". The New York Times: B10. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[S]aid Marc Bohan...[of] Christian Dior, 'Women don't seem to be too eager to rush into short skirts'.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (4 November 1980). "Knees, Please". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Henri Bendel president Geraldine Stutz says we will never see the miniskirt as a major fashion again.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Sahara Woodell, 18,...said she could never wear a mini when she was a student at Springfield High School [1978-82]. 'I was the only one wearing them and I'd get hassled by the teachers and the boys'.
- ^ Cohen, Joyce (11 October 1981). "A Higher Grade of Campus Dress". The New York Times: 32. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
'There are two mini-skirts on campus, and I own one of them,' said Cecelia Manning, a Yale senior...
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (16 October 1979). "Skirting the Mini". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
In the past week of showings of ready-to-wear for next spring, [fashion buyers] had seen lots of short, short skirts.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (17 February 1981). "Hemlines: Trend is Down, but Anything is Acceptable". The New York Times: B10. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
About three years ago [1978], the direction reversed and designers began shortening skirts - to just below the knee, to the middle of the knee and even clearing the knee.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (18 August 1980). "The Sweat Shirt Swath". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The sweat shirt extends to a skimp dress...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (23 October 1980). "Familiar Wrinkles". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[Y]oung Parisiennes are wearing sweaters that stop above the knee or long sweatshirts and thick tights...
- ^ Sweetinburgh, Thelma (9 March 1981). "Fashion and Dress". 1981 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1980. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. p. 377. ISBN 0-85229-381-X.
The everyday city costume for summer was the cotton jersey T-shirt dress with fancy striping...In some cases the ribbed hemline introduced a low bubble effect...Some models were abridged to mid-thigh...
- ^ Dullea, Georgia (22 October 1979). "Fashion Revivals: Are the 1980s Really Ready for the 1960s?". The New York Times: B6. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The 1980s, to judge by the recent goings‐on in Milan and Paris, are opening with a rerun of the 60s.
- ^ Finley, Ruth, ed. (1 December 1979). "Paris Spring/Summer 1980 – Short...Angular...Bare". Fashion International. VIII (3). New York, NY, USA: 1.
Parisian designers, inspired by the 1960s, showed the skimpiest apparel since the heyday of Courreges....Miles of legs via shortened skirts: knee, mid-thigh, micro-mini...
- ^ Duka, John (26 November 1980). "The Spring Collections: Looking Backward". New York: 72. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Seventh Avenue designers...move another decade toward the present with their 'new' collections of sixties clothes: ruffled necklines, feathered cocktail dresses, dropped waistlines, and miniskirts...Pauline Trigere...pulled out some of her minis from the sixties...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (21 April 1981). "The Mini Revival: Options for a New Age". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[T]he black plastic mini has been part of the punk uniform...
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1980". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 371. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Kenzo, Chloé and others now showed pretty, floral printed-cotton versions of the rah-rah introduced by Kamali and [Perry] Ellis in 1979.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1980". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 371. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Norma Kamali launched her 'sweats' collection: rah-rah skirts, leggings and jogging suits cut in grey and brightly coloured cotton sweatshirting. The tops often had huge, American-footballer shoulder pads. These low-priced co-ordinates were copied worldwide.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (25 March 1983). "Comfortable Classiness". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
One year ago [1982], all you saw being worn by fashionable women was Norma Kamali.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
It is hardly the rage it is in London, or the prevailing mode as in Milan. But the priority is about the same as in Paris. With many young women,...the mini is back.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (17 October 1982). "Fashion Notes". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
There are...lots of miniskirts in denim being worn in Milan...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...Dana Seymour, 20,...like[s] the Jag jean miniskirt she was wearing while shopping...
- ^ Finley, Ruth, ed. (1 March 1983). "Looking Toward Summer: Tops & Bottoms". Fashion International. XI (6): 4.
Mini-skirts in super bleach denim range from 14" micro length to 17". Styles are 5-pocket...
- ^ Sweetinburgh, Thelma (9 March 1984). "Fashion and Dress". 1984 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1983. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. pp. 374–375. ISBN 0-85229-417-4.
...[T]he previously popular 'ra-ra' skirt, well above the knee and flared,...was replaced by one that was equally short but tight and flat, front and back,...very snug...
- ^ Dorsey, Hebe (14 November 1976). "Fashion". The New York Times: 239. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
[At Kenzo, t]here were short skirts with balloon tops, caught under a low belt; some skirts then swirled out, but others, neat and tapered, were just little wraparounds.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Kenzo from Paris and Kamali from New York have popularised the flounced-skirt variety...
- ^ Dorsey, Hebe (27 January 1977). "From Paris, Skirting the Issue with Ruffles and Flourishes". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (16 April 1978). "The Message is Clear, but How Will It Be Received?". The New York Times: 70. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[T]he chief proponent [of knee-baring skirts]...is Yves Saint Laurent.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (23 October 1980). "Familiar Wrinkles". The Washington Post. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
...[Saint Laurent's] shifts...have...belts tied low on the hips to hike them to miniskirt length.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (10 May 1982). "Miniskirts: The Height of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[T]he tight, black leather skirt is a spinoff from Yves Saint Laurent...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (4 April 1982). "Fashion Notes". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
[A] straight black skirt...that stops above the knee would put you in the camp with Yves Saint Laurent...All the designers like the skirt in leather (YSL did it first at least a year ago)...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (28 March 1985). "YSL, Robust and Refined High Hemlines for His Paris Show". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...Saint Laurent faithfuls...might...wear...the short black skirt [they] probably already own...Yves Saint Laurent...established his preference for short skirts, cut off above the knee or shorter....[H]igh heels...are shown with everything.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (16 October 1979). "Skirting the Mini". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Karl Lagerfeld, who designs for Chloe, showed the shortest miniskirts.
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1983". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 384. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Karl Lagerfeld added to his freelance commitments by becoming designer-in-chief of Chanel couture.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (19 October 1982). "Givenchy and Chanel Excite Paris". The New York Times: C8. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
It has been announced that [Karl Lagerfeld] will serve as artistic director of the [Chanel] couture collection to be shown next January [1983] and it has been rumored that he had something to do with the [1982] ready-to-wear...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (19 October 1982). "Givenchy and Chanel Excite Paris". The New York Times: C8. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The Chanel...skirts have been shortened...Now they clear the knees....[T]he skirts are not only short but tight, causing the models to mince and wriggle rather than stride down the runway....[T]he black-toe pumps have greatly elevated heels, so the look sometimes appears to be a parody of itself...
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1986". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 398. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
...Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel almost parodied status dressing,...[showing] miniskirts hung with chains and quilted like the handbags.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (25 March 1986). "In the Front Rank: Lagerfeld and Montana". The New York Times: C14. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...Ines de la Fressange, the model who personifies the Chanel image, appeared on the runway in a suede micro miniskirt...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (25 March 1987). "Shooting for the Hip". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...Chanel...thought the knee was the ugliest part of a woman's body...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (19 October 1982). "Givenchy and Chanel Excite Paris". The New York Times: C8. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
No matter what happened, Chanel always covered the knees.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (28 October 1986). "Viewpoints: 3 Fashion Capitals". The New York Times: B20. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
All over Europe, fashion designers...combine the miniskirts of the 1960s with the crinolines of the 1950s...
- ^ Duka, John (26 November 1979). "The Spring Collections: Looking Backward". New York: 72. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
...Oscar de la Renta's thigh-high bubble dresses.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (6 November 1979). "Fashion: The American Accent is on Pants". The New York Times: B10. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
...[Perry Ellis] has been showing miniskirts....[T]hey have hip yokes and stiffening underneath the hips to puff them out at the sides like 18th-century panniers....[U]nder the pastel skirts, you'll see organdy petticoats.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (7 November 1980). "Round the Edges of American Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Perry Ellis...showed...skirts that are padded below the waist at the hip....Ellis calls them 'farthingales'...Ellis...has shaped his linen farthingales with a wad of organdy....[Y]ou can wear them with padding and when you want to change, just take out the padding.
- ^ Duka, John (26 November 1980). "The Spring Collections: Looking Backward". New York: 73. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Perry Ellis's...short, hip-yoked, padded skirt, or farthingale...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (15 December 1986). "Petticoats Plus: Skirts' New Flair". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Westwood introduced what she calls 'mini-crinis' for spring a year ago [1985]. She made wired crinolines as separate underskirts to put under her flannel schoolgirl dresses and pleated skirts...There are jeans skirts and bias-cut black velvet dresses with the crinolines built right in....
- ^ Staff writer. "Vivienne Westwood designs". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
- ^ Cicolini, Alice; British Council (2000). Inside out: underwear and style in the UK. Black Dog. ISBN 9781901033274.
- ^ Evans, Caroline (2004). "Cultural Capital 1976–2000". In Breward, Christopher; Ehrman, Edwina; Evans, Caroline (eds.). The London look : fashion from street to catwalk. New Haven: Yale University Press / Museum of London. p. 149. ISBN 9780300103991.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (15 December 1986). "Petticoats Plus: Skirts' New Flair". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Westwood herself takes full credit for the crinoline revival.
- ^ Evans, Caroline; Thornton, Minna (1989). Women and Fashion: A New Look. London: Quartet Books. pp. 148–150. ISBN 9780704326910.
- ^ Duka, John (26 August 1984). "The Rock Connection". The New York Times: 190. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...[S]ince April 1983, when his first collection was presented in a show of young designers sponsored by Polaroid, Sprouse has shot to international prominence.
- ^ Elkins, Ann M. (9 March 1985). "Fashion". The Americana Annual 1985: An Encyclopedia of the Events of 1984. Grolier Incorporated. p. 224. ISBN 0-7172-0216-X.
Stephen Sprouse in his retrospective minidresses revived the Day-Glo neon colors of the 1960s.
- ^ Goodman, Wendy (21 September 1987). "Stephen Sprouse Tries a Comeback with a Solid New Store". New York. 20 (37): 139. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
...eleven-inch micro-skirts in Day-Glo solids...
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1984". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. pp. 389, 390. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
Stephen Sprouse combined graffiti, xeroxes and video silk-screen prints. The ghost of Edie Sedgwick, the Warhol starlet of the sixties, stalked his runway in day-glow TV cut-out dresses, hipster minis, tubes and protest jewellery....Stephen Sprouse's electric orange mini-dress suspended from an asymmetrical shoulder strap and covered in paillettes.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (5 May 1984). "True Colors". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
This was [Sprouse's] second collection....: miniskirts, cutout dresses, tunics, tights, all in neon colors. Shades of the 1960s, Mary Quant, Courrèges, Biba, Youthquake and the Mods....Sprouse also revived silver lamé in a salute to the space age...
- ^ Finley, Ruth, ed. (1 January 1988). "New York's Contemporaries: Bold, Bare & Unabashed". Fashion International. XVI (4). New York, NY, USA: Fashion International: 3.
Stephen Sprouse...cuts his micro mini at 11" in black, pink or baby blue patent leather.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (22 April 1981). "All Eyes Turn to Perry Ellis". The New York Times: C14. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
...Giorgio Sant'Angelo...is...making skin-tight dresses of stretch fabrics...
- ^ Feldkamp, Phyllis. "Fashion". 1989 Collier's Year Book Covering the Year 1988. MacMillan Educational Company. p. 241.
To balance the leggy look, shoulders were noticeably widened and heightened with padding. Many of the new dresses...were so minimal that they afforded little coverage, particularly the...sheath styles made of stretch fabric.
- ^ Sweetinburgh, Thelma. "Fashion and Dress". 1989 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1988. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ind. p. 200. ISBN 0-85229-504-9.
The bold minidress stole the show for the summer street look in Europe. The snug-fitting, black cotton stretch jersey sheath accentuated every curve as well as unwelcome bulges....The extra-tight black mini...was worn with...stiletto-heel black pumps.
- ^ Cunningham, Bill (1 March 1988). "Fashionating Rhythm". Details. VI (8). New York, NY: Details Publishing Corp.: 150. ISSN 0740-4921.
[two mini-length Marc Jacobs sheath dresses in gingham, one strapless with a button-front placket, worn with a mini-length, shoulder-padded coat and high-heeled pumps, and the other with a broad portrait neckline and short sleeves, both very 1950s-looking except for the length.]
- ^ Cunningham, Bill (1 September 1989). "To the Future Through the Past". Details. VIII (3). New York, NY: Details Publishing Corp.: 296. ISSN 0740-4921.
...Giorgio di Sant'Angelo['s]...dresses were all seductively draped in gossamer fabrics. [Pictured is a lower-thigh-length sheath dress tightly draped in what looks like chiffon after the manner of 1950s Grès, on a curvaceous, athletic, and buxom model.]
- ^ "The New Fuller Figure". The New York Times: 113. 7 December 1986. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
In the 1960s, a young, stick-thin, waif-like but charming English model named Twiggy summed up high style....[N]ow that curves count, Paulina [Porizkova] - with her generous bosom, small waist and curving hips - constitutes a stunning example of the current ideal. Paulina and several of her curvaceous colleagues - Elle MacPherson and Anna Jonsson, to name but two - are stars of the shows for...top...designers...The pulchritudinous model has also come to dominate the pages of fashion magazines...Vogue has put a stamp of high-style approval on the curvily contoured woman....From exercising, working out at gyms, jogging and the like, women's bodies have filled out...
- ^ Gross, Michael (12 November 1985). "Notes on Fashion". The New York Times: A32. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Perry Ellis gave the fashion crowd a jolt with an uncharacteristically close-fitting men's and women's collection shown with sizzle by such models as athletic Jeff Aquilon, lithe Lise Ryall, [and] Elle Macpherson, who is so fit she seemed to leap out of everything she wore...
- ^ Tilberis, Elizabeth, ed. (1991). "Vogue 1980-1989". Vogue 75 Years. London, England: The Condé Nast Publications Ltd.: 141–142.
...the new curvy figure in Patrick Kelly's sequined stretch, 1988. [a skin-tight, silver-sequined, strapless mini sheath-dress to the upper thigh with a bustier bodice, worn with high-heeled silver pumps]...Emanuel's mini-sheath and cartwheel. [a strapless, shirred, mid-thigh-length white sheath dress with a fifties-looking bodice and net-covered black cartwheel hat with matching gloves]
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1991). "The Aggressive Eighties: 1980-1991". In Vogue: 75 Years of Style. London, England: Random Century Ltd. p. 230. ISBN 0-7126-4791-0.
By 1990 miniskirts, false eyelashes and white lipstick turned the stretch look into a parody of the sixties.
- ^ Hyde, Nina S. (6 September 1985). "Alaia, Paris". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
...[B]est of all were his signature wool jerseys, from the knee to micro-mini.
- ^ Gross, Michael (24 October 1986). "Embattled Alaia Unveils a New Look". The New York Times: A22. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Alaia's...[s]kirt lengths are shorter than ever, so short in fact that many women may want to lengthen them.
- ^ Schiro, Anne-Marie (21 May 1985). "Notes on Fashion". The New York Times: A24. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
...[T]he Palladium opened on 14th Street...[T]he Azzedine Alaia uniforms for the...waitresses...have black jersey minidresses with tank tops...
- ^ Cunningham, Bill (1 March 1987). "The Collections Spring Forward". Details. V (8). New York, NY: Details Publishing Corp.: 110. ISSN 0740-4921.
...[W]ith [Alaïa's] revival of the miniskirt, stretch slips and dresses that follow and define the wearer's torso with structural welt seaming – he pushes ideas beyond the accepted.
- ^ Cunningham, Bill (1 March 1989). "Designers of the World, Unite!". Details. VII (9). New York, NY: Details Publishing Corp.: 258–250. ISSN 0740-4921.
There is no sluggish sensuality from Azzedine Alaïa, whose designs reveal the wearer's every cleft and curve. [Four mini-length dresses are shown: 1. a mid-thigh-length black stretch sheath dress of partly-transparent fabric so thin that it looks like pantyhose nylon, worn with chunky, early-fifties-looking high heels; 2 and 3. Two white pearl-beaded dresses, one a very minimal two-piece of micromini length, the other a slightly loose but openwork one to the top of the thigh; 4. a tightly belted, light-colored stretch dress to mid-thigh with a back bared by an intriguing cutout, again in fabric so thin that it almost looks like the model has nothing on.]
- ^ Mulvagh, Jane (1988). "1986". Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. London, England: Viking, the Penguin Group. p. 399. ISBN 0-670-80172-0.
...Alaïa...presented rippling little skating skirts...
- ^ Cunningham, Bill (1 March 1989). "Designers of the World, Unite!". Details. VII (9). New York, NY: Details Publishing Corp.: 279. ISSN 0740-4921.
[an Alaïa dress with a sheer, fitted, sleeveless bodice, possibly of white stretch chiffon, that drops to a raffia hipster micromini]
- ^ Schiro, Anne-Marie (7 April 1985). "Azzedine Alaïa: New Sophistication". The New York Times: 34. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
What they saw were...miniskirts...Mr. Alaïa is...known for...cutting his jackets and skirts to provide curves on even the most angular bodies.
- ^ Theis, Tammy (8 November 1986). "The Leather Look". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
Body consciousness also reigns supreme as the theme at North Beach Leather, where designer Michael Hoban['s]...strong-shouldered jackets with curvy zippers, paired with matching, thigh-hugging skirts, have their share of sexy appeal.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (28 October 1986). "Viewpoints: 3 Fashion Capitals". The New York Times: B20. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
...Jean-Paul Gaultier and Patrick Kelly...were making skin-tight clothes out of stretchy swimsuit fabrics that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
- ^ Cunningham, Bill (1 March 1989). "Designers of the World, Unite!". Details. VII (9). New York, NY: Details Publishing Corp.: 260. ISSN 0740-4921.
Patrick Kelly's...basic stretch body dresses...are embellished with unexpected decorations like the happy self-portrait pinned to a little black dress...a roll of the dice, a galaxy of silver stars or a dinner suit printed with jazzy notes.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (25 April 1987). "Women are Stealing a March on Short Skirts". The New York Times: 1. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
In a rare display of unanimity, designers in the world's leading fashion centers here and in Europe focused on short skirts in their recent showings of collections for fall. Most of them, deciding to forget about 'choices' and 'options' - catchwords for the last few years - showed hemlines that bared the knee in most cases and frequently half the thigh as well.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (6 October 1987). "In Short, Milan!". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Those who hoped designers had gotten over short skirts by now better think again. Here in Milan, where Round 1 of the spring fashion shows began Sunday, skirts are, if anything, getting shorter....Short skirts are mainstream.
- ^ Luther, Marylou (1 August 1987). "Paris When It Dazzles". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The hemline hike is such an established fact of life in the couture this season [1987] that only two major designers – Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent – bothered to show any daytime skirts below the knees.
- ^ Gross, Michael (14 June 1987). "Retailers Rush to the Miniskirt". The New York Times: 13. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Diehards who want no part of the mini tidal wave can turn to Giorgio Armani, the only major designer in any country who continued to show sweeping hemlines for fall.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (6 October 1987). "In Short, Milan!". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
If you were looking for long skirts this week you would have to go to the showrooms of the fashion avant-garde....Long skirts are being shown primarily by designers such as Romeo Gigli and Dolce and Gabbana...
- ^ Cunningham, Bill (1 September 1987). "Follies to Futurism". Details. VI (3). New York, NY: Details Publishing Corp.: 125. ISSN 0740-4921.
In New York, the retro is a road map of the Sixties...Bill Blass echoed Cardin and Oscar de la Renta was mesmerized by Balenciaga's grand couture....David Cameron modernized the drum majorette silhouette of the Sixties...
- ^ Finley, Ruth, ed. (1 January 1988). "New York's Contemporaries – Bold, Bare and Unabashed". Fashion International. XVI (4). New York, NY, USA: Fashion International: 3.
Michoel Schoeler designs a 60s-inspired crop top and mini in bright lime.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (7 April 1987). "Bill Blass, Hemming It Up". The Washington Post. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
Everything was worn with nearly opaque panty hose and mostly flats for day...
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (25 April 1987). "Women are Stealing a March on Short Skirts". The New York Times: 1. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
The differences between the short clothes of the 1960s and the styles offered today are considerable....Today,...styles...have a more formal air. Suits and jackets, almost ignored in the 1960s, are in the forefront of fashion now. Clothes are more shapely, with waistlines generally marked and hiplines often rounded.
- ^ Finley, Ruth, ed. (1 May 1987). "Paris Fall/Winter '87 – Short, Shapely and Feminine". Fashion International. XV (8). New York, NY, USA: Fashion International: 2.
Trends: Short, above the knee to mid-thigh...Shoulders, smaller, more natural...
- ^ Hyde, Nina (11 April 1987). "The Short and the Short of It". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
At...Perry Ellis...there were very short skirts...Jacket shoulders are not as broad as before...
- ^ Elkins, Ann M. "Fashion". The Americana Annual 1988: An Encyclopedia of the Events of 1987. Grolier Incorporated. p. 236. ISBN 0-7172-0219-4.
...[T]he opaque or textured stocking, the high-heeled suede pump or the over-the-knee, often thigh-high boots...were highlighted by the shorter skirts.
- ^ Peake, Andy (2018). "A Sharper Edge". Made for Walking. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Fashion Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-7643-5499-1.
Donna Karan, Yves Saint Laurent, and Andrea Pfister all featured boots that went to midthigh.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (11 April 1987). "The Short and the Short of It". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
[Donna Karan's] shoes are mainly over-the-knee boots or heels.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine (25 April 1987). "Women are Stealing a March on Short Skirts". The New York Times: 1. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Most designers have endorsed opaque panty hose to avoid a look that is too leggy. In dark shades, these hose also offer some camouflage...
- ^ Buck, Genevieve (8 April 1987). "The Skinny on the Mini, with Dark Hose and...Legs Together". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
Short skirts can look terrific with black or other dark, opaque hose or tights – black sheers when the clothes are very dressy.
- ^ Finley, Ruth, ed. (1 January 1988). "New York's Contemporaries – Bold, Bare and Unabashed". Fashion International. XVI (4). New York, NY, USA: Fashion International: 3.
...[T]he addition of stretch makes everything look new and move like never before. Natural fibers such as cotton, wool and silk are enhanced by Lycra...
- ^ Howell, Georgina (1991). "The Aggressive Eighties: 1980-1991". In Vogue: 75 Years of Style. London, England: Random Century Ltd. p. 230. ISBN 0-7126-4791-0.
...[D]resses kept on shrinking until maximum Lycra s-t-r-e-t-c-h was achieved....[T]he hems of skirts crept up to jacket level.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (14 October 1987). "Southern Exposures". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
Vivienne Westwood...showed bands of fabric not much wider than a belt, under which models wore knee-length jersey 'panties,' as she called them, that looked like bike shorts.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (21 October 1987). "The Index is Up on Short Hemlines". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Some of Ungaro's dresses for evening were as short as bathing suits, barely covering the crotch. They were among the shortest dresses in Paris this season.
- ^ Cunningham, Bill (1 March 1988). "Fashionating Rhythm". Details. VI (8). New York, NY: Details Publishing Corp.: 120, 154. ISSN 0740-4921.
A new hybrid: Ungaro's bathing-suit dresses...draped and tied on a leotard base, have the brevity of a bathing suit....Emanuel Ungaro's masterly draping of a micromini evening dress (or is it a bathing suit?)...
- ^ Liner, Elaine (5 October 1987). "Knee Sculpting, in the Name of Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
As hemlines go up, up, up, so are requests for special knee-shaping operations at the offices of cosmetic surgeons.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (17 May 1987). "Fashion Notes". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
In London the mini is everywhere, and in Paris it is a faît accompli. In New York the mini is an increasingly popular style.
- ^ Gross, Michael (14 June 1987). "Retailers Rush to the Miniskirt". The New York Times: 13. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (6 October 1987). "In Short, Milan!". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
Many Milanese women are wearing above-the-knee-length skirts. While some of the young wear them scarcely longer than a bandage, mothers and daughters, often walking together, show hems an inch or two above the knee...
- ^ Suplee, Curt (10 April 1988). "Looking at the Body Politic". The Washington Post. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
The body politic has spoken: The mini-skirt is officially dead. Despite a year-long siege by hemline hoisters, the female American thigh remains fully upholstered.
- ^ Morris, Bernadine. "Fashion". The 1989 World Book Year Book: Events of 1988. World Book, Inc. p. 303. ISBN 0-7166-0489-2.
...[T]he resistance to the miniskirt among working women caused a reaction in the fashion industry in 1988.
- ^ Gross, Michael (17 July 1987). "Are Short Skirts At Home at Work?". The New York Times: B6. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
- ^ Hyde, Nina (23 May 1987). "Ahem! Are Short Skirts Fit for the Office?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
- ^ a b Standring, Chris (2 March 2015). "Top Trends: Spring's long skirts flatter every body". Edmonton Journal. Postmedia Network Inc. Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
- ^ Parry, Richard Lloyd (22 October 2011). "Japan's schoolgirls set the trend". The Independent. Archived from the original on 15 May 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
- ^ Miller, Laura (2012). "Youth fashion and beautification". In Mathews, Gordon; White, Bruce (eds.). Japan's Changing Generations: Are Young People Creating a New Society?. Routledge. pp. 87–88. ISBN 9781134353897.
- ^ Staff writer (29 September 2002). "Gucci Spring/Summer 2003 Ready-To-Wear". Vogue. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 27 November 2015. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
- ^ a b c d e Jones, Sam; Kington, Tom (25 October 2010). "Italian mayor seeks ban on miniskirts that reveal too much". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g Kiruga, Morris (5 December 2014). "Understanding Africa's 'fashion gestapo': Miniskirts, maxi skirts make-up and long beards". Mail and Guardian Africa. Archived from the original on 12 July 2016. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
- ^ Sevenzo, Farai (2 May 2013). "Letter from Africa: Miniskirts and morals". BBC News. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
- ^ a b "The Secret to Wearing the Micro Miniskirt Trend Like a Grown-Up".
- ^ "Y2K fashion is back, thanks to Gen Zers – Here are some fashion trends we can't get over".
- ^ a b c "The Life Span of a Micro-Mini Trend How the Miu Miu miniskirt ended up on every fashion-magazine cover".
- ^ "So How Is It Really? Wearing The Micro Mini Skirt Trend IRL".
- ^ "Trust Me: This Risky Skirt Trend Is About to Take Over in 2024".
- ^ a b "MIU MIU'S NEWEST TAKE ON THE VIRAL MICRO-MINI SKIRT IS HERE".
- ^ "Miu Miu's viral micro miniskirt is dividing fashionistas".
- ^ "DIESEL'S SKIRT ISN'T MADE MADE FOR SITTING, BUT SO WHAT?".
- ^ "Impractically iconic: HUNGER defends Diesel's belt-length mini skirt".
- ^ a b "Say Hello To Fashion's Other Cult Mini: The Diesel Belt Skirt".
- ^ a b "Is the Miu Miu Micro Miniskirt breaking society's dress codes?".
- ^ "The Ultra-Mini Skirt is Back. But Where's the Body Inclusivity?".
- Sources
- Quant, Mary (1996). Quant by Quant. London: Cassell.
External links
[edit]![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- "1960s Fashion Feature, including biographies, interviews, clothing and resources". Victoria and Albert Museum. Archived from the original on 30 March 2023.