Miniskirt: History of the miniskirt

There miniskirt, short, very short and unscriped: the revolutionary history of miniskirt

The head symbol of the twentieth-century fashion revolution, protagonist of exhibitions and debates

 

 

 

 

Strength, courage, irony, sensuality, irreverence and unscriped rebellion to a system: ten centimeters above the knee that challenged the whole world, proclaiming it immortal fashion icon. Let's talk about miniskirt, the outfit that has been telling the story of all women for over fifty years.

 

It was 1963 when the London designer Mary Quant, known for the exuberant character of her, exhibited in the showcase of the Bazaar in Kings Road in London, the first version of the miniskirt. History has always told us this version, even if many say that the same magic made fabric, was born from the inventive of Andrè Courèges, French designer. Following the numerous disputes around the natives of the miniskirt, a few years later in 1999, it will be the same as to say: "Neither me, nor Courrèges, we had the idea of ​​the miniskirt. It was the way to invent it. "

 

 

Mary Quant was born in 1934 in a small London outskirts, Blackheath, from parents of Glossi origins both teachers and eager to see his daughter engaged in the world of school in a future. It won't be the same and the young stylist will soon decide to live artistically at the day, accompanied by Alexander Plunket Greene. The two, will then know the photographer as well as former lawyer Archie MC Nair, with whom they will open the bazaar boutique in 1955. The young London women had finally found a point of reference for his purchases, thanks to the event and the perspicacity of the Stylist who had invented the miniskirt.

 

Yet the irreverent girl a little more than thirty-year-old will be the creator of the most revolutionary concept of the twentieth century fashion. The English designer interpreting the demands of time, and discovering the young seventeen year old Leslie Hornby, called Twiggy for the slender form of her (Fuscello in Italian), thus gave life to the miniskirt. Initially the miniskirts had to have the sole purpose of discovering just two inches over the knee young Londoners, later came to four centimeters who will decrease the minimum standard to define a "mini" skirt.

 

And after all women in miniskirt They were nothing but a reflection of the times of that time, which by a decidedly less uninhibited and free fashion, were increasingly giving way to the new rules in terms of costumes and society. The era of the skirt was now passed to Coco Chanel, who in turn had distorted the concept of female clothing, giving women a new sensuality and elegance. But that innovative skirt, long after the knee but symbol of freedom and elegance, no longer enough to the new generations.

 

The Beatles, La miniskirt, I Rolling Stones and again the recognition of homosexuality in 1967 in England, thus led to a sexual revolution with the enormous social and cultural scope, proclaiming the sixties standstepsts of a period of struggles for the elimination of the man-woman height ( culminated in 1975 with the approval of the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act).

 

That the only Mary Quant or the possible inventor of the miniskirt Andrè Courrèges, had managed to create a revolutionary outfit, therefore it is perhaps an extreme of a version that already saw in the streets of London the request to create a skirt that recalls a more youthful style, so much so that the reactions of London "well "They didn't wait. And if in the living rooms by English tea the comment was linked to the excellence of those mini skirts, in some middle-eastern countries but also in the United States themselves, the latter was seen as a symbol of backwardness of the western world.

 

 

Particular the case of tax evasion linked to miniskirt: In the sixties the first miniskirts reached twenty-four inches, or about sixty-one centimeters, but over the years and advance of the higher-style request, the lengths arrived at a variable between thirteen and twenty inches, or thirty-three and Fifty centimeters about. This involved an exemption from the payment of taxes, due to the fact that children's clothes do not include the payment of the indirect tax.

 

The idea of ​​creating skirts that had less length and who gave freedom to his legs, did not strike the only chief of clothing in question, but also the dresses themselves. The minidresses are also born, particularly appreciated by women in revolt. In 1968 there were therefore extreme performances of women dressed in just wide pullovers and tights or miniabts able to discover the legs as much as possible. The effect of the cultural and sexual revolution did not wait and another chief symbol of the woman's integrity, up to that moment, was literally at the stake: the bra thus became a real enemy for many women, a demon from to defeat. There are therefore numerous scenes of groups of protesters intent to burn bras in public square.

 

Negative comments on miniskirt Furthermore, by prestigious stylists, they did not be late to arrive. The same Coco Chanel horrified in front of the idea of ​​a short skirt, despite having been the same fait of another twentieth century revolution in terms of fashion. Dior also thought the knees the less attractive part of the body, and the same Quant instead stated that "a woman is as young as her knees". The debate was therefore strong and turned on.

 

But this did not stop the unstoppable advanced of cultural and social progress and the English model who consecrated the miniskirt, Twiggy, didn't have to wait too much to be noticed. New female icon, the English model wearing the miniskirt immediately acted in terms of canons of beauty, advancing (perhaps negatively would say today) the absolute conviction of perfection linked to the thinness of the models. A dictation that will demonstrate a negative plague of our time, but then he had to appear as a profound change towards female stereotypes.

 

The summer of 1966 brings a breath of youth to Italy: it will be precisely this season that Italian girls will wear for the first time miniskirt. Italy also becomes the protagonist of the dynamics of challenge and female emancipation, dictated by the new frontier of the international cultural revolution. The controversy towards the miniskirt here, even here they were not lacking, but singular concerns: from extracts of the era, in fact, they are able to interpret not only the negative judgments to these few centimeters of the leg discovered above the knee, but also and above all the fear that So much nudity could bring Malanni to the young protagonists of the new clothing.

 

 

Call from many simply mini, inspired by the famous English car, Miniskirt had later in the 1970s further luck by leading all the voices that continue to give her for a passenger phenomenon. And in these years the girls in miniskirt They continued to ask more and more short-term measures, reaching a backward, which saw the outfit again stretching a few centimeters.

 

 

This happened because if at first, whoever invented the miniskirt He intended to proclaim women's sexual freedom, gender equality and independence by stereotypes Démodé, with the advancing of the provocation given by wearing miniskirts, the abuse of the woman's image in his most instrumental and sexual robe made angry Feminists and indignant contemporary society, so much to decide to gradually eliminate those measures considered by an extremism.

 

 

Yet the shorts were born, very short trails usually faithful alternatives to miniskirts in jeans, symbol of the late seventies before and eighties then. A period that will never be thriving like that of the sixties, but that he saw profound transformations in the tissues and colors of the miniskirt, which in the eighties of different styles in the 1980s. From the CodyCross miniskirt, at the wool miniskirt And from broad shapes, imagined by Valentino as an alternative for curvy women.

 

An attempt to divine himself from that cultural paralysis that had linked the miniskirt to the English model Twiggy and the thinness of her, who lasted very little. The 1980s are remembered for the fashion of the erobica and the rebirth of physical exercise. This happened above all due to the obvious plague of the American overweight that required particular attention to the recovery of healthy diets and physical activity. The spread of tights and leggins therefore did not favor the progress of the miniskirt, but he didn't even sanciate his end.

 

Because if on the one hand the world of fashion then required an alternative clothing, on the other the miniskins in pajettes, or even the uniforms that provided the use of clothes over the knee and miniskirt, did not make a sectoral choice for What the French call mini jupe.

 

But if the eighties in the western sphere they saw a slow sunset of the miniskirtIn the eastern part of the hemisphere and exactly in Japan, this saw a discreet success thanks to the numerous souls and manga, animations and eastern comics, where often the protagonists were represented in the "Westernized" imagination with great eyes and tight miniskirts. Symbol of progress and provocation, but also of sensuality. The same animations that then arrived in the nineties to a wide diffusion also in Europe, thus unintentionally remarking the eternal return of the MINI in every version, detailing the Scottish miniskirt for stories often set in the Nipponic colleges.

 

 

The legendary "ninety" are also the launch springboard of numerous American TV series, which bring back to the center of the scene the image of a career woman, often in Black or blue miniskirt, in comprehensive office that must be based on an ambientation loaded with intricate plots and unforgettable loves. A vintage that once again overturns the interpretation of the garment conceived by the London designer Mary Quant.

 

From initial revolution in the field of sexual independence and women's rights, to contested exaggeration in the seventies, passing through the sweet cadence in the 1980s, arriving to the disruptive force of a symbol of career women in the nineties, the miniskirt Thus follows the sudden and changing transformation of society over forty years, reaching the two thousand years. The first ten years of the third millennium are thus loaded with innovation, technology and transformation of the needs of the population.

 

If in the sixties the Beatles rock had led to the need for the dance and the fluttering movement of the miniskirts, the two thousand asks for trousers from low waist, wide and strictly in jeans. The Street Style highlights the need of young people to tell his era through the language of Rap and the mini only rarely appear under the form of extreme rebellion, sometimes up to a minimum size of twenty centimeters, real "belts".

 

However, a parallel phenomenon attracts another fashion sphere of those years: lulites, gothic and metallic fashion somehow report to Luca La miniskirt In its average length, with the aim of taking the imagination of a certain portion of web users, a tool in those years in exponential growth but also to remark musical and literary genres.

 

 

In terms of fashion starting from the decade we are living today, the miniskirt is a cult and a symbol of absolute sexual freedom claimed even with the birth of the international day dedicated to miniskirt and established on 6 June 2015 by Ben Othman president of Tunisian origins of the League in defense of secularism and freedom and feminist Najet Bayoudh.

 

There World Miniskirt Day It is born in fact by an unpleasant episode lived by an Algerian girl, to whom he was forbidden to support the maturity exams due to her skirt, considered too short. Since then numerous feminist movements have declared the absolute need to feel free to wear any garment without fearing to be judged, imported or unfortunately sometimes object of violence.

 

 

Eva Ensler, US playwright in one of her Poetry on the miniskirt Thus it is expressed:

 

"My short skirt is my challenge.

I will not allow you to scare.

My short skirt is not an exhibition,

is what they are | before I am obliged to hide it

Or to suffocate it.

Let us habit.

My short skirt is happiness.

I feel in touch with the earth.

I'm here. I'm beautiful.

My short skirt is a flag

liberation in women's army. "

 

 

And again about quotes on miniskirt The same Ensler says:

 

"My short skirt

It is not a supplication

not asks you

to be torn

or pull up or down.

My short skirt

It's not a legitimate reason

to violate me

even if before it was

it is a thesis that does not hold more

in court.

My short skirt, you believe it or not,

It has nothing to do with you. "

 

 

 

The last years of the miniskirt And the age of him finally made this leader a cult, one of the twentieth-century fashion symbols and for this style and taste icon. There are numerous revisitations and interpretations of him. A must have that every woman must have in her wardrobe and wear at least once in her life.

 

Winter 2020 reports on international miniskirts that highlight the legs, hired by large wool sweaters, often in an attempt to give a simple taste but nude effect to young protagonists of the new fashions of these times.

 

With a very high Sex Appeal the miniskirts are accompanied to warm clothes such as socks, absolutely dark, or still to particular fabrics such as the imitation leather, returned to fashion together with the protagonist of the year: the crocodile print.

 

Mock-Crock style miniskings, with dark or hot colors, or even the very special ones Miniskirt Quilted, suitable for every occasion and situation, they are now fifty years after its creation, the miniskirt a closet's best seller. And these are the years of the apparent simplicity, the nude effect and a fashion that does not draw any kind of exaggeration in clothing but but an essentiality that does not leave ample space to the imagination.

 

Discovered legs, high boots, heels and complete jambs and able to highlight the waist, are just some of the strong points of current fashion. A reference to a style that at the moment at the time of the creation of the mini wanted to save the detachment between the fashion of the London ladies of the first half of the twentieth century and the young rebels, from which the first version of the "Street Style" was born.

 

 

Depending on the type of leg of each woman, there are several types of shoes can be combined under one miniskirt. The Cuissard boots For example, they are ideal for long and tapered legs, depending on the height the combination of heels can be of a few cm or more important. A more casual style reports the idea of ​​being able to combine with the minisners sneakers of different color, from the mustache or outline lit of iridescent colors. From fuchsia to electric blue, passing through acid green, the sneakers conquer many women but for those wishing a classic but casual look, the choice certainly falls on stringed vintage style and classic moccasins. The Plus? Wear under the Miniskirt socks matched At moccasins or comfortable and colorful tights. Finally the famous Ankle Boots, born almost to accompany the miniskirt.

 

 

 

At the miniskirt An exhibition was also dedicated to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, to date in Cromwell Road and still on display until February 2020, narrating the life and vicissitudes of the outfit and his creator Mary Quant with an exhibition of two hundred miniskirts and Of all those accessories that made it unforgettable.

 

The two hundred heads have been traced to a sashtag sound entitled #wewantmary, asking anyone who still had one Miniskirt purchased in the bazaar In Kings Road in London to come forward to organize an exhibition entirely dedicated to the Chief Icon of the twentieth century. To support the miniskirt even cult objects like waterproof and Ankle Boots. An event symbol of inventive and sensitive intuition of Mary Quant, Today ultra-eighty, who has never stopped launching trends and to defend women's rights through the promotion of a freedom in dressing that no one before you, had dared to imagine.

 

It is necessarily recent history that of the world of social media, always attentive to constantly rivanging attention to the subjective interest of the individual to fashion. An oil stain that instegram knows well and that for this allows young fashion Victim to discover and use the best influences, fashions and images. The world of miniskirt So it has never been so debated, chatted and in-depth. Online every possible combination of fabrics, colors and materials is reflected in the ideas of web users. And fashion houses, great signatures, can not help to re-evaluate and enhance the history of the most explosive mini ever, of the small great twentieth-century fashion revolution. So here is what season after season, walkway after walkway, the miniskirt has not stopped enchanting and provoking, accompanying each type of style and era.

 

The myth of English fashion, in full development already in the sixties, had aroused a crowd interest from the English young people, but those same women had asked Mary Quant a new way of living the world and the activities of young London. From the spatenate dance of the Beatles rock, passing through the new hairstyles, then ending dynamic and constantly movement, very different from that of the most adult English women and linked to a more closed and sedentary lifestyle: the miniskirt She had already revolutionized a whole generation and she didn't know yet.

 

The myth had just begun and would no longer be finished.

For further study click here:

• The miniskirt in the 60s
• The leather miniskirt