Photography courtesy Gamut |
The Little Skirt Tries Its Latest Comeback Fashion Industry Tests Fan Loyalty With Youthful-Looking Miniskirts By CECILIE ROHWEDDER of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Some women wore miniskirts when they first appeared in the 1960s and again when they reappeared in the 1980s. Now miniskirts are back again, and so are some of their original fans. "That's a fashion I will always follow," says Gisela-Carolin Lehmkuhl, a 50-something Duesseldorf homemaker. "Miniskirts look beautiful, and I don't mind showing my legs."
That's the kind of fashion fortitude designers and retailers are counting on as the mini launches its latest comeback. Skirts ranging in length from just short of the knee to little more than a wide belt feature prominently in the spring and summer collections of nearly all the top designers. They fill pages of fashion magazines and are making their way to store racks from Milan to Manhattan. The fashion houses and stores are expecting the little skirts to be a big hit -- not so much for the teen crowd but for women in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
Why expect these more-mature shoppers to go for the mini? For one thing,
they've worn them before and may find them easier to stomach than the
hip-hugging jeans and belly-baring crop tops now favored by the young. And there
seems to be a demand for youthful styles among older shoppers. Working to stay
young-looking with exercise, cosmetics and plastic surgery, they are continuing
to wear tight, bright clothes far longer than their mothers did.
"The
feeling is 'I've done all the work in the gym, I've done all the surgery, now I
want to show it off,' " says Cynthia Cohen, who heads Strategic Mindshare, a
U.S. retail consulting firm. The company's market research, which is based on
surveys and focus group interviews, shows that older women increasingly find
clothes made for their age in moderate styles and large sizes uninspiring and
unfashionable.
And the mini has a nostalgia factor. Although the short
skirts had a revival in the punk era of the 1980s, they remain associated with
the 1960s when miniskirts were born, shocking society in the same way that
ladies in trousers did in the 1920s. In Europe, women marched in the streets
specifically for their right to wear the skirts, at that time still effectively
taboo at offices and public functions. In Tennessee, high school girls fought a
court battle to wear short skirts to school. Baby boomers, now the fashion
majority, may be happy to recreate the look of those youthful days.
Marc Jacobs Spring 2005 Collection |
"Everybody has rosy memories of the 1960s," says Pamela Gibson, a senior
lecturer of cultural studies at the London College of Fashion who has written
extensively about older women's increasingly bold approach to dressing. More
importantly, she believes older shoppers will buy the mini because it is a
strong fashion trend that they can participate in. "The legs are the last part
of the body to give in to gravity," says Ms. Gibson, who is 57 and wears her
skirts no shorter than knee-length.
Sales of spring and summer clothes
have only just begun, so it's too early to get a reading from the street on how
women will take to the new style. And most grown-up miniskirt fans admit that
wearing them requires courage. "You have to feel happy and confident," says
Nadine Schatz, an elegant blonde in her 30s who divides her time between
Duesseldorf and Monaco and spends most of her time traveling with her husband, a
biotech executive. "It is definitely a power statement." Even the bravest may
balk at squeezing into skirts that look as though they were made for teenage
tennis players. Some will merely shorten their hemlines slightly to what they
feel comfortable with at their age. At the worst, the short skirts could flop
like the midi or pouf skirts when they were first invented.
Among the
doubters is Klaus Ritterskamp, owner of a designer store in Duesseldorf. "Maybe
we will sell a few, but we have to think economically," he says. "We only carry
the most expensive labels. Our customers are older and they will not buy
miniskirts in great numbers."
Nevertheless, many designers and retailers
seem to be aware of the hurdles and are hoping to make the new shorter style
accessible to older women. Fashion folk are increasingly aware that as
populations age, older shoppers are becoming more important to their business.
And, after all, they are the ones with the means to buy pricey designer wares.
"Showing legs has nothing to do with age," says London designer Hussein
Chalayan. In the runway shows of his spring collections, he put decorated minis
over leggings in matching colors and presented short skirts in several layers,
which makes them more wearable for those who are past the scrawny teen
years.
Marc Jacobs Spring 2005 Collection |
U.S. designer Marc Jacobs combined the minis in his Marc collection with
thick black tights. Some short skirts by French fashion house Chanel have
borders of lace or chiffon that add a few centimeters to their length. Other
designers are even more deliberate about making the new style accessible to
mature women. As a rule, Italy's Gucci makes the skirts shown on the catwalk 10
centimeters longer for stores. And Germany's Jil Sander sells skirts in two
lengths -- an extremely short runway version and a longer (though not truly
long) retail version.
Some retailers are using similar tactics to sell
the new style. "It is not the very young women who buy miniskirts," says Trudie
Goetz, owner of Trois Pommes, a chain of 35 designer stores in Switzerland. "It
is older women with the right figure. And if they don't have the right figure,
we help them with the right accessories." The 40-something Ms. Goetz, who wears
minis herself, has her salespeople bring out matching accessories such as
tights, leggings or overknee boots when they show short skirts to older
customers.
Harrods department store in London has ordered miniskirts both
for the trendy sections of the store and for the high-priced international
designer room where more affluent and mature women shop. For that department,
Harrods has ordered fewer skirts than for the less expensive and youth-geared
parts of the store. But it plans to promote miniskirts aggressively in window
displays and in all areas of the store. For older shoppers, Harrods salespeople
recommend skinny satin pants, which are fashionable this season, to go
underneath miniskirts.
On Duesseldorf's fashionable Koenigsallee shopping
street, Albert Eickhoff, the owner of a large fashion store that bears his name
and caters to women of all age groups, ordered around 300 miniskirts for the
beginning of the season. Two short, sexy Gucci skirts were sold on the day they
arrived. Among the buyers was Maria Mertens, a math and English teacher in her
40s who selected a short black silk skirt with a flounce. "I have always worn
miniskirts, but I will do it more now that they are back in fashion," she says.
Baby Phat Spring 2005:
Sean John Spring 2005: | | | Most
of the mature women jumping on the new trend are fashionable to begin with. But
even those style addicts have their limits when it comes to miniskirts. Ms.
Mertens, for instance, says she wouldn't feel comfortable wearing them at her
school. But she's already put on her new Gucci purchase with high-heeled boots
for a ladies' luncheon.
Fashion fans may be more likely to wear
miniskirts at social events than at the office. But Duesseldorf's Mr. Eickhoff,
who has been in the retail business for 42 years, says minis are such a major
trend this year that fashionable women will have to adopt it regardless of their
age or occupation. He predicts miniskirts are here to stay for at least two
years -- a small eternity in fashion terms. Like others in the industry, he sees
the mini's comeback as a turning point in fashion, away from the somber, modest
styles of the past decade toward the sexy and glamorous look that increasingly
invades the catwalks.
"It was time for a change in fashion, and such
change can't always be accomplished with cuts and color alone," Mr. Eickhoff
says.
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