Patricia Banks of Little Rock remembers when Twiggy, the British supermodel of the 1960s, first came on the scene.
“I was about 14 and very taken with her because, I, too, was a skinny little thing with big eyes,” says Banks, 60, a writer and poet. “I was fascinated by this young model … who dared to wear miniskirts and show them off to the world.”
Banks, who says her legs were an asset, wanted to do the same.
“My father wouldn’t approve of my wearing skirts that short,” she recalls. But as the first day of seventh grade approached, Banks, who’d learned to sew, decided to take a chance. Someone had given her just enough leftover fabric for what turned out to be a “really short” red tank dress.
“It barely left enough hem to sit on. I definitely couldn’t bend or stoop.”
Banks was among thousands of American teenage girls and young women who’d become enamored of the British fashion invasion - the miniskirt.
Amazingly, this year the marks the half-century anniversary of that first Vogue magazine appearance of the miniskirt, defined in the online Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a woman’s short skirt with the hemline several inches above the knee.” Dictionary.com describes it as “a very short skirt or skirt part, as of a coat or dress, ending several inches above the knee. Also called mini.” And there’s the definition that appears a number of places online, credited by Wikipedia to Sophie George’s 2007 book Le vetement de A a Z : Encyclopedie thematique de la mode et du textile (Product A to Z: Thematic Encyclopedia of Fashion and Textiles): “A miniskirt (sometimes hyphenated as “mini-skirt”) is a skirt with a hemline well above the knees, generally halfway up the thighs - normally no longer than [4 inches] below the buttocks.”
A small garment that made a big splash.
“Men leered, mothers swooned, Dads scowled and young girls shed their preppy pleats for, well, a tiny snip of a skirt or a sheath that looked like a short tunic, [worn] with tights and Mary Janes,” summarizes Rita Mitchell-Waldoff, a former Little Rock boutique owner who’s now a writer and fashion editor for Fashion Advantage magazine.
“The mini was just the ‘leg up’ that modern women wished for to step out of suburbia back into not just the workforce, but the world force.”
Reminisce, the nostalgia magazine, recently unveiled “Mad for Minis,” a pictorial, fact-spattered look back at the garment and the revolution it started.
According to the Reminisce feature, the miniskirt had a very practical function: “it symbolized freedom for women whose legs were now free to move.”
Some credit for the mini goes to Mary Quant, a London designer who began shortening skirts in the late 1950s after being inspired by the ballet dancers she watched as she grew up. With a goal to create clothing that allowed dance movement, she named her skirt after her favored Mini Cooper automobile. Credit also goes to French designer Andre Courreges, who introduced minis to Paris in the same time period.
HEY THERE, CHELSEA GIRL
The miniskirt became the staple of the “Chelsea-girl” look, which became popular in London - and on Twiggy. Then the miniskirt did a Mayflower and floated to America, and the rest is history. Well, not so fast. “American clothing companies were reluctant to adopt the mini - until they spotted trendsetter Jackie Kennedy wearing one,” according to the Reminisce feature.
Reminisce associate editor Leah Wynalek says the magazine asked readers to share their memories and they mentioned how they would up roll their longer skirts once they got out of their parents’ sight and went to school.
“In the United States the miniskirt, I think, really represented the growing youth culture in the 1960s,” Wynalek says. Whereas the 1950s were all about order and social etiquette, she says, “Teens in the ’60s wanted to do things their way, not their parents’ way.”
Including Banks, who somehow got out of the house and onto the school bus without her father seeing her.
Banks continued to wear minis to school and to hang out with her friends: “My favorite miniskirt outfit was a golden-tannish skirt with a shirt my brother gave me and a necktie I made to match the skirt,” which she wore with gold fishnet hose. FREEDOM TO ROAM
The miniskirt had its practical aspects.
It “did make moving around easier,” Wynalek says. “But it was primarily, I, think, a symbol of rebellion. … It definitely represented a new generation that was coming into their own and taking risks and accepting change.” So, in that respect, it sort of fell in with the counterculture movement.
Those who dislike pantyhose should blame the miniskirt for their emergence. They were introduced to replace thigh-high stockings, as garters and girdles didn’t work with the short skirts. And “the garment industry had to catch up,” Wynalek says.
Looking at the photos of early miniskirts, one might refer to them as tame. Advertisements feature thin models who wore their often-plaid skirts.
“Those miniskirts were really … tame by today’s standards,” says Wynalek. “They wouldn’t even be called miniskirts. … It’s shocking how conservative they are.”
But to the young women and girls who’d seen their mothers in long circle skirts and white gloves, she adds, it was quite the radical look.
Some of those “girls” never gave up that radicalism. “I’m still rocking leather minis. [Leather is] my favorite material,” says Jojo Sims, 48, who tends bar at Cache Restaurant in Little Rock.
The North Little Rock resident’s miniskirt memories go back to 1973, when she was 8 years old. “I was in the Philippines in the mid-70s, and that’s all everybody wore,” Sims recalls.
Of history’s notable miniskirt wearers, the most iconic besides Twiggy was fellow model Jean Shrimpton.
“They became global names and influenced American style,” Wynalek says. “They brought that mod scene over to us.”
And Quant, of course. Quant created the Chelsea look and the young Londoners frequented her store, Bazaar, Wynalek says.
In light of the mini as a symbol of rebellion against traditional values, “I’m sure many conservative regions rejected it at first,” Wynalek says. But big cities took it over and when it made its appearance in TV and movies, teenagers were affected by the style.
As were the adults who adopted it. “I just remember our teachers and bosses at work admonishing us to check mirrors as we exited, to make sure that our [under] pants didn’t show,” Mitchell-Waldoff says.
Becky Kossover of Little Rock, who just turned 70, was a little older, and married, before she began wearing miniskirts. “At home and in college, I don’t recall [wearing] minis … and parents wouldn’t have approved either,” says the independent representative for jewelry company Silpada Designs. “This was the South, and aren’t we always a little late style-wise - or used to be?”
As a young wife and mother, Kossover stayed with her family in New York for nine months before returning to Little Rock: “Miniskirts were definitely in New York, and, by then, they were here, too.”She remembers one particular miniskirt she wore during her mid-20s - “this shiny [brown], fake leather-looking skirt I wore with kneehigh boots. Thought I was so cool!” MOVING ON UP
Nowadays, the miniskirt is seen not as a trend but as a staple, still favored by girls, young women and celebrities. Even in the midst of the current fashion season, full, flirty skater-style miniskirts can still be found to wear along with the crop tops that dominate the spring 2014 landscape. Hemlines may have gone up and down in the last 50 years, “but the mini always comes back,” Wynalek says.“And those first miniskirts kind of paved the way.”
The greatest legacy of the miniskirt? “It changed fashion,” she says. “Designers were able to take more risks and people were able to try more trends.”
But just as much as it represented revolution, rebellion and freedom, the mini represented … sexiness, something considered by many to be its biggest benefit.
“Guys loved those miniskirts,” says Banks, who caught the eye of one of the most popular boys in school with that red minidress all those years ago.
“If you had the legs to pull them off, you could get a lot of attention, while looking really cute.”
Style, Pages 31 on 04/15/2014