1970s From 1969 onwards, the fashion industry largely returned to longer skirts such as the midi and the maxi, with even Mary Quant showing no above-the-knee skirts for 1970. Journalist
Christopher Booker gave two reasons for this reaction: firstly, that "there was almost nowhere else to go ... the mini-skirts could go no higher"; and secondly, in his view, "dressed up in mini-skirts and shiny
PVC macs, given such impersonal names as 'dolly birds', girls had been transformed into throwaway plastic objects". This lengthening of hemlines coincided with the growth of the
feminist movement. However, in the 1960s the mini had been regarded as a symbol of liberation, and it was worn by some, such as
Germaine Greer and, in the following decade,
Gloria Steinem. Greer herself wrote in 1969 that: In the earliest seventies, particularly in the US, minis and microminis briefly rebounded in popularity after women's rejection of designers' attempt to impose midiskirts as the sole length in 1970, referred to as "the midi debacle." Women both continued to wear miniskirts and switched even more to trousers, and designers, having been made to understand that they would no longer be respected as arbiters, followed suit for a couple of years and included minis again, often underneath midis and maxis. Beginning at the end of the 1960s, minis during this period might be worn with chunky
platform shoes, often with high wedge heels. In 1971, almost all designers, even upper-echelon couture designers, showed hot pants, also presented in combination with midiskirts, maxiskirts, and minis. They continued to express a desire for women to wear longer skirts, though, and soon those women who had not switched entirely to jeans and trousers were often wearing their skirts at the knee. In 1973,
Kenzo made calf-length skirts look new by cutting them fuller and in lighter fabrics for a style that was very different from the midi and women soon accepted this, making it one of the characteristic styles of the mid-seventies, one that would last into the early eighties, sometimes dropping to the ankle. The "midi debacle" was also a feature in regions outside the fashion centers of the US and western Europe. In 1970, there was a publicized women's march in
Mexico City for the right to wear minis and criticising midis. In some regions the miniskirt continued or even increased in popularity during the 1970s, for example in
Turkey.'' (1974)Although miniskirts had mostly disappeared from mainstream fashion by the mid-'70s, prompting the leading designer of the time,
Yves Saint Laurent, to say, "I don't think short skirts will ever come back," they never entirely went away, with women having to be pressured by the fashion industry to abandon above-the-knee skirts as late as 1974, miniskirt stalwart
André Courrèges continuing to show them, and even some mainstream designers like
Halston,
Kenzo, and
Karl Lagerfeld offering a few mini-tunics and mini-blousons among the standard calf-length dirndl skirts of the mid-seventies
Big Look period. In these occasional high-fashion versions of the mid-seventies, mini was taken to mean any length above the knee. Enough above-the-knee skirts were shown in Paris in 1976 for fashion writers to suggest a possible mini revival, but these were never broadly taken up by the general public, which was still gravitating toward below-the-knee dirndls. Around 1976,
punks began including among their array of clothes intended to shock very short miniskirts in materials like black leather, rubber, PVC, tartan, and even trash bag plastic, the unfashionable length shocking almost as much as the aggressive materials. Punks of this period also introduced the wearing of miniskirts with then-very-out-of-style high-heeled, late-1950s pumps, which they got at thrift shops, a combination not worn in the 1960s and unthinkable during the 1950s. Though not at all mainstream, these punk looks would influence bands that came after them into wearing more sixties-looking miniskirts again, as evidenced by
Deborah Harry of the group
Blondie,
Kate Pierson and
Cindy Wilson of
The B-52's, Fay Fife of
The Revillos,
Rhoda Dakar of
The Bodysnatchers,
Siouxsie Sioux of
Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the group
The Slits, who often wore miniskirts during the "new wave" era of the late '70s. Some of these performers were part of a few sixties-revival subcultures that came in the wake of punk and included
Mod revival and
ska revival, both of whose female adherents sought out authentic early miniskirts as part of their sixties-revival look.
Blondie's
Deborah Harry had her punkish, sixties-ish look provided by fashion designers
Anya Phillips and
Stephen Sprouse. Sprouse had been responsible for
Halston's "skimp" minis of 1974 and would become internationally known for his own sixties-revival line during the eighties. The song "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" (1978), by new wave artist
Elvis Costello, contains the line in the chorus: "There's no place here for the mini-skirt waddle." During the seventies, when males and females typically wore identical denim cutoff shorts instead of miniskirts if they wanted short lengths, the female cast members of the US TV show
Hee Haw, known as the "Hee Haw Honeys", always wore country-style minidresses even during the miniskirt's fashion hiatus in the late '70s and early '80s; and as mentioned above, female tennis players, figure skaters, cheerleaders, and dancers also wore short skirts. Toward the end of the seventies, in 1978 and '79, some of the above-the-knee skirt looks that would become associated with the eighties began to be introduced, including the flounced, hip-yoked style debuted by
Norma Kamali and
Perry Ellis in 1979 and called rah-rah skirts in the UK and above-the-knee versions of the tight sheath skirt, with even Yves Saint Laurent showing some above-the-knee lengths. The
sixties-revival subcultures emanating from the UK seemed to reach the high fashion world somewhat in 1979, as a few Paris catwalks presented styles seemingly pulled right out of the sixties, including miniskirts inspired by
Courrèges,
Rabanne, and
Gernreich. Courrèges himself revived some of his sixties styles that year. Some fashion writers even proclaimed a miniskirt revival for 1979-80, particularly from Paris designers. At this point, these styles were still considered avant-garde, though, and a variety of mostly longer skirts were worn by the public, with the full, calf-length forms that had dominated the mid-seventies still prevalent but beginning to be made slimmer, slightly shorter, more brightly coloured, and often slit. The mainstream return of the miniskirt would not come until the 1980s.
1980s and 1990s Miniskirts returned to mainstream acceptance in the 1980s, but with some differences from the 1960s: Because women had worn skirts that covered the knee and often dropped to the calf for so many years during the 1970s, any skirt above the knee was often called a miniskirt in the late seventies and early eighties, even skirts that hit just above the knee. They were not presented this time as the only length women should wear, nor was there societal pressure for women to shorten their hemlines, as there had been in the late 1960s when designers also presented a variety of lengths. They were now just one option among a variety of lengths and styles of skirts and pants available to women, and miniskirts tended to be in the minority among all the other kinds of skirts and pants seen on the streets, particularly in the early part of the decade. Throughout the decade, street lengths ranged from ankle to thigh, for both skirts and trousers, and most women wore their skirts just below the knee, as they also had in the seventies. Miniskirts came in a greater variety of shapes than in the sixties, from full and flouncy to narrow to tight to abbreviated revivals of skirt shapes of the 1940s and '50s like sheath skirts, trumpet skirts, tulip skirts, and bubble/puffball skirts. Above-the-knee versions of strapless 1950s dresses were seen, as were formal minis with bustles and trains in the back. Even tutus were shown mid-decade. Many above-the-knee dresses had noticeable
shoulder pads. They were worn with a greater range of heel heights than in the sixties, depending on the shape of the miniskirt, with flats preferred for some styles and high-heeled pumps preferred for others. In the early part of the decade, opaque tights, sometimes brightly coloured, and flat, calf-high boots might be worn with the more casual styles, much like in the mid-sixties. Throughout the period, dressier styles with high heels tended to be worn with hose ranging from slightly tinted to opaque. A punk influence was sometimes seen when miniskirts were paired with combat boots or Doc Martens. Another difference between 1960s miniskirts and 1980s miniskirts is that 1980s miniskirts might be worn over footless tights, long tight shorts, various lengths of thermal underwear, or tight, cropped pants, a trend that began with designers like
Norma Kamali,
Perry Ellis, and
Willi Smith in 1979. Unlike the matching shorts occasionally worn with miniskirts during the 1960s, these were entirely separate garments, not part of an ensemble, that typically were in a different fabric and color than the skirt. In the early eighties, the footless tights might be referred to by the 1950s terms clamdiggers, pedal-pushers, capri pants, or toreadors, depending on their length, but in the second half of the eighties, all footless tights began to be referred to as leggings. Also at the end of the eighties, visible bike shorts were often worn with miniskirts. In the early eighties, miniskirts were still considered avant-garde and unusual among the public, though designers had begun showing them again in 1979 and had resumed shortening some skirts to just above the knee in 1978. Some minis from 1979 and '80 were modeled after sweatshirts. Others were lifted straight out of the Space Age mid-sixties. Some were inspired by punk. Some sixties-revival or sixties-sounding female musical performers of the early eighties combined punk elements and eighties-style miniskirts with actual sixties-vintage minis, as in bands like the early
Go-Go's, the early
Bangles, and
the Pandoras, with even the bands' names redolent of the sixties. The most influential designer of miniskirts in the early eighties was
Norma Kamali. In 1980, when there was a fad for wearing oversized sweatshirts as minidresses, she introduced sweatshirt-fabric versions of the flounced, hip-yoked, above-the-knee skirts she had first presented in 1979, called rah-rah skirts in the UK. In 1981 and '82, miniskirts from this "Sweats" line would reach mainstream levels of popularity, the first minis to do so since the early 1970s, making Kamali a household name. While still showing a range of lengths, other designers had also increased the number of miniskirts in their collections by the end of 1981, including
Kenzo (who had never stopped showing them since he reintroduced them in 1976),
Calvin Klein,
Halston,
Karl Lagerfeld, and
Yves Saint Laurent.
Saint Laurent's lower-thigh-length mini-sheath skirts in metallic gold leather were a particular hit among socialites in early 1981, and the broader public was beginning to warm to the idea of minis as well. In the spring of 1982 (as featured in the June issue of
Time Magazine that year), short skirts began to re-emerge more strongly among the public, notably in the form of "
rah-rahs", which were modeled on those worn by female cheerleaders at sporting and other events. By 1983, miniskirts had become more widespread, but the Kamali-style full versions common in 1981-82 had waned in popularity in favor of slim, straight minis in
jean-cut blue denim, as well as other trim styles.
Kenzo had been almost the only designer to champion miniskirts during their nadir in the mid-seventies, and he was vindicated in the eighties as several of the miniskirt styles he had shown back then were taken up by other designers.
Yves Saint Laurent had believed short skirts would never return in the mid-seventies, but he led the move to above-the-knee skirts starting in 1978 and during the first half of the eighties was known for a number of brief but dressy skirt styles, especially slim, black leather miniskirts.
Karl Lagerfeld had begun showing miniskirts again at the end of the seventies and in 1983 would take over the house of
Chanel, where he soon began adding minis and microminis to the offerings, a surprise because
Chanel herself had hated 1960s miniskirts, considering the knees to be an ugly part of the body. Throughout the 1980s, beginning at the end of the seventies, designers experimented with shortening heavily constructed historical dress styles, mostly from the 1950s, with fifties crinoline skirts, fifties sheath skirts, and fifties bubble/puffball skirts shown in above-the-knee lengths as early as 1979. Styles from the deeper past were also shortened. In the early eighties,
Perry Ellis referenced the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries by altering the shape of the flouncy, hip-yoked miniskirts he'd been showing since 1979. In 1980, he bolstered them with petticoats and added stiffening to extend them out to the sides, causing some fashion writers to compare them to
panniers. In others, he moved the fullness to the back for mini-length bustles. The following year, he added stuffed-organdy padding to the skirts and referred to them as
farthingales, a sixteenth-century term for a similarly padded floor-length skirt. A better known example of a truncated historical skirt style came from former
punk designer
Vivienne Westwood. In 1985, British designer Westwood offered her first "mini-crini," an abbreviated version of the Victorian
crinoline, complete with wire cage. Its mini-length, bouffant silhouette inspired the puffball skirts widely presented by more established designers such as
Christian Lacroix. By Lacroix's peak of influence in 1986-87, the designer could present a range of historical dress styles in mini lengths: minis with bustles, mini-pouf skirts, mini-crinolines, mini-tutus. In 1989, Westwood's mini-crini was described as having combined two conflicting ideals – the crinoline, representing a "mythology of restriction and encumbrance in woman's dress", and the "equally dubious mythology of liberation" associated with the miniskirt. Sixties-revivalist
Stephen Sprouse showed his first collection in 1983 and favored almost period-perfect shift minidresses and trapeze minidresses in graffiti prints, blacks, and searing sixties brights, including fluorescents, with geometric paillettes and sixties-style cutouts, sometimes of peace signs. Some of his microminis were in patent leather. Others were in stretch fabrics for an eighties-style tight fit. Also eighties-style and very unlike the 1960s were the shoes he showed with these clothes: 1980s shoe shapes like high-heeled pumps and Doc Martens. Other designers who focused on sixties-revival looks, including sixties-looking miniskirts, for periods of time during the eighties included David Cameron and Liza Bruce. A style that would be seen off and on throughout the decade but would become common in the second half of the eighties was the tight, stretch minidress worn with high-heeled eighties pumps and often padded shoulders. In silhouette, this was sort of an abbreviated, less heavily constructed version of 1950s
sheath skirts. These forms of tight, blatantly seductive 1980s minis were shown on bodies that were voluptuous and/or muscular instead of thin and child-like as in the sixties. When these stretch minidresses were paired with sixties-style makeup and accessories, it was a lesson in the differences between sixties minis and eighties minis. In the mid-1980s,
Azzedine Alaïa began presenting mini and micromini versions of his extremely tight dress designs, his anatomical seaming and occasional sheer fabrics creating a prurient effect that would never have been seen in sixties miniskirts. His miniskirts, though, also included some that resembled flippy skating skirts and others that were grass-like raffia so short they barely covered the wearer. His earlier fitted, curve-accenting skirts, usually in a just-above-the-knee length that sometimes rose to the lower thigh, would be very influential in the second half of the decade, spawning imitations by companies like North Beach Leather and
Body Glove. During the mid- to late eighties,
Patrick Kelly put his own whimsical signature on the familiar, high-heel-accompanied, tight, stretch minidresses of the decade, covering them with bright buttons, bright bowties, cartoon faces, etc. For fall of 1987 and spring of '88, designers united in presenting a great proportion of miniskirts in almost all collections, with very few mainstream designers bucking the trend. Though a few designers showed these minis in somewhat sixties shapes with flat shoes or boots, most showed truncated versions of eighties suits and cocktail dresses with slightly narrower shoulders, worn with high-heeled over-the-knee boots or high-heeled eighties pumps that looked like pumps from the late fifties/early sixties. Dark hose were recommended for them. Many of the new minis were stretch-fit tight, and some were very short, with
Ungaro's so brief they were likened to 1950s bathing suits. The fashion industry's miniskirt campaign was so intense that newspaper articles appeared on women considering plastic surgery on their knees to suit the new lengths. However, though there was a rush on miniskirts for a time, the unanimity around mini lengths did not last long, as women continued to consider minis just one option among the many available during the decade and did not replace their entire wardrobes with them as they had in the sixties. That so many of the new miniskirts were skin-tight also meant that they were less appealing to many women than the flaring A-line miniskirts of the 1960s had been. This 1987-88 miniskirt push, though, would help cement the mini's status as a basic item in the average woman's wardrobe for many years to come. From the 1980s, many women began to incorporate the miniskirt into their business attire, a trend which grew during the remainder of the century. The titular character of the 1990s television program
Ally McBeal, a lawyer portrayed by
Calista Flockhart, has been credited with popularising micro-skirts. {{multiple image | The very short skirt is an element of Japanese
school uniform, which since the 1990s has been exploited by young women who are part of the
kogal (or
gyaru) subculture as part of their look.
2000s and 2010s In the early 2000s, micro-minis were once again revived. For fashionable wear, early 21st century microskirts were often worn with
leggings or
tights in order to avoid revealing too much. In the 2000s, a ban on miniskirts at a teacher's college in
Kemerovo was claimed by lawyers to be against the terms of equality and human rights as laid out by the Russian constitution, whilst in
Chile, the women's minister,
Carolina Schmidt, described a regional governor's ban on public employees wearing minis and
strapless tops as "absolute nonsense" and challenged their right to regulate other people's clothing. Miniskirts regularly appear in Africa as part of controversies, something that has continued since the 1960s. In the early 21st century alone, instances have included a proposed ban on miniskirts in
Uganda justified by claiming that they were a dangerous distraction to drivers and would cause road accidents, and in 2004, a leaflet campaign in
Mombasa instructed women to dress modestly and "shun miniskirts", leading to the
Kenyan government denying that they wanted a ban. While most of these proposed bans come from male politicians, in 2009,
Joice Mujuru, Zimbabwe's vice president, had to deal with rumours that she intended to ban miniskirts and trousers for women. The micro miniskirt trend has been associated with various fashion movements, from the mod style of the 1960s to the edgy looks of the 2000s. The skirts revival has evoked nostalgia for Y2K icons like
Britney Spears and
Paris Hilton, making it a piece for fashion enthusiasts seeking a contemporary edge with a nod to the past. With brands like
Miu Miu and Miaou, the micro miniskirt has made its way back into one of the top fashion trends. The micro mini made its emergence during Paris fashion week across catwalks and street style. Fashion brands like Khaite and Etro are capitalizing on the micro mini skirt trend, driven by customers' nostalgia and desire for a return to sexier styles. It's a subversive and deconstructive take on the classic schoolgirl pleated skirt. The skirt was immediately seen on
Nicole Kidman,
Paloma Elsesser,
Zendaya,
Lily Rose Depp,
Bella Hadid, and many more, With its low rise and extreme shortness, the miniskirt captures attention, reflecting
Miuccia Prada's dedication to bold and unconventional fashion statements. The belt is another take on the current micro mini skirt trend referencing
Paris Hilton's iconic quote "skirts should be the size of a belt". Inspired by the chunky, low-waisted belts of the 1990s, Diesel's creative director Glenn Martens envisioned a garment that exudes a nostalgic yet contemporary vibe. A TikTok review by content creator Adrienne Reau, garnering 5.2 million views, has sparked controversy over the skirt design.
The Daily Mail labeled it "'sloppy'," while Insider noted its impracticality, stating it's impossible to sit in.
Diet Prada added humor, questioning if wearers are "ready to expose your buttcheeks to the breeze?"
Miu Miu's presentation of the skirt solely on slim young bodies further fueled these criticisms, although subsequent magazine covers featuring plus-sized model
Paloma Elsesser and 54-year-old actress
Nicole Kidman helped broaden its appeal to a wider audience. ==Images==