We’ve all made sartorial mistakes.
In case I should forget mine, there are plenty of pictures and videos of me that prove I’ve made misdirected fashion choices. I’m thinking of the belted baby doll dress in the second season of Quilty, the “are-those-cornrows?” hairstyle in the third season, the yellow nail polish on the first Love of Quilting series I un-officially co-hosted. These were all mistakes.
But we learn — not in spite of these misfires, but because of them — to internalize the truth: just because something is trendy does not mean you should wear it. Ballet flats give me piano legs. Cap sleeves cut me across the widest part of my arm. Most bluejeans add ten pounds to my frame. (Until very recently, when I actually found a great pair by accident, I had not owned a pair of bluejeans in over six years. There are other things one can put on one’s bottom half, you know.)
If you are sixteen, you can pretty much wear whatever you please as long as you can get out of the house before your mother throws her body against the door to keep you inside. But I have spotted the “hi-low” skirt trend and it is so bad, I don’t believe even a nymphy, achingly pretty sixteen-year-old could pull it off.
The hi-low skirt is a short skirt with a long, sheer skirt over it. What can the designers be thinking? It doesn’t make sense. It is not aesthetically harmonious. The short skirt is not cut in a remarkable way to begin with and then there’s this long, gauzy afterthought, this sheer mistake wafting all over the place. I think it makes a gal look like she’s fallen from a great height and has hit tree after tree on her way down, leaving ripped bits of her real skirt on the craggy branches. Now she’s just got one bit of dress left — a bit of dress and a slip underneath.
Sub-optimal.
Oh, but I see it! I see the “hi-low” on the streets of Chicago. Not all over town, but some. And I look with wonder and I put on a black turtleneck. Turtleneck loves me, hi-low loves me not.
Leave a Reply