Mini Skirt

Among the numerous fashion innovations of the 1960s, it is essential to list in a predominate position the Mini Skirt. The Mini Skirt is an extremely abbreviated skirt which barely covers the bottoms of its wearers and represented, to some of its critics, the most blatant example of a new (and degenerate) sexual morality that would come to characterize the “Hippie” and “Flower Power” generations. This brief report will describe the style, positioning it within the social, political and economic tenor of the era in which it first appeared. It will also assess the reappearance of the Mini in the 1990s, again with reference to these environmental facto9rs. The report will conclude with an analysis of what the original and “new” Mini Skirt suggests about the two very disparate eras in which it has gained acceptance as a fashion trend.

II. AMERICAN SOCIETY & THE MINI SKIRT

Richard Davis and Jeff Stone (1985) date the arrival of the “Age of Aquarius” simultaneously with the presentation of the Mini Skirt in 1965. Worn by virtually everyone interested in fashion (and without much attention to whether or not one’s body was suited to the extremely short skirt, which focuses attention upon the legs and hips), the Mini was immediately adopted by college students, “hippies”, members of the social and political counterculture, fashion tend setters and followers, and women of widely different ages

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merged during the period, including political activists such as those of the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement and members of rock and folk-rock bands. Twiggy, the famous British fashion model, was intimately associated with the Mini, which appeared in countless films and magazine ad layouts. The Mini and other fashion statements of the era were automatically “hip”, as were the people who wore them. It is interesting to note that while this and other new fashion styles originated in the youth counterculture, they were rapidly taken up by men and women who were anything but involved in this segment of American and western society. Change was definitely in the air when the Mini appeared: as Greenberg and Young (1973) have stated, the sixties represented one of the most dramatic periods of social and political change in the history of the United States, and there is little doubt that these factors influenced fashion significantly. III. THE RETURN OF THE MINI By the beginning of the mid-1970s, the Mini and the bell bottom pants that had been worn enthusiastically in the previous decade had declined in popularity. In the 1990s, however, the Mini again returned, demonstrating that fashion is indeed cyclical in nature. D
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Approximate Word count = 1302
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)