Tuesday 17 September 2013

Fashionably long...or short?

When I was very young there was a lady living in our village called Sarah. She wore very long clothes, always had a shawl and always had her head covered. I don't know how old she was but she probably was not as old as I am now! She was regarded as an oddity by most people. Her wardrobe was Victorian and owed nothing to the period of war austerity everyone else was suffering from.

I think of her as I try to make some sort of sense of my wardrobe.

I like long clothes.....they suit me, elongating the outline and hiding some of the bumps! For years I felt elegant and even occasionally fashionable wearing ankle length skirts with joy, learning how to hoist them up for climbing over fences and going up stairs.

Now they are definitely more akin to Sarah's wardrobe than anyone else's.

However having the final foot of any outfit wet after being trailed through the long grass has finally lost its appeal. I had to get some shorter skirts!

I was cheered to find that maxi skirts are still available...in fact right now almost any length will do.....but I started to look for midi skirts....something that ends in mid calf!

Fortunately shopping on line is easy these days so one or two possibles appeared and were duly sent for!

Some are going back.....they are much too long still....but one or two will be fine and today , the wet weather is the ideal skirt testing day!

A blue denim skirt from M and S has just had its first outing up the garden.....and I don't now have a garland of damp denim around my ankles!

As for whether its in fashion. Bah, Humbug....I will be a latter day Sarah when it suits me, appearance has ceased to be relevant....after all my cassocks and albs all touch the ground!

Freedom of movement suddenly seems more relevant than fashion.....but I could never go back to the days when I wore skirts above the knee! A whole new set of movements had to learned , both by standing up and sitting down without revealing far too much!

Mid length seems appropriate right now.... For the moment at any rate.......

2 comments:

Ray Barnes said...

Totally agree about wearing what you feel 'right' in, not what fashion dictates.
I am aware that my once good legs are now best hinted at than seen, and that nicely rounded hips have become sofa cushions in the making.
But that, sadly, is life.
Skirts for me have to be pretty, comfortable and in the only two colours I wear so somewhat limited for choice, but if we feel at home in our clothes we usually look fairly reasonable too. At least, that's what I tell myself.

UKViewer said...

As a non-skirt wearer (not in public anyway :) I can see how needs overcome fashion. I just remember people saying "She'll catch her death of cold" when mini-skirts first emerged, while as a young man was to busy admiring the scnery to listen.

Nowadays, skirts seem to be even shorter, without any evidence that young women are aware of their lack of modesty (or possibly not caring) but now as an old fuddy duddy, it's me saying "She'll catch her death of cold''. Isn't life funny :)