A bad split skirt is really, really bad. The most cursory viewing of The Apprentice will show how wrong things go when you cross Angelina’s sticky-out leg with office appropriateness. It’s a look that’s half date night, half PowerPoint presentation. So very, very wrong.
But I am not giving up, especially not when skirt hems are getting longer and the alternative is being hobbled by your pencil skirt. What’s more, done right, a split suggests dynamism, movement and modernity: showing a bit of leg in the way a woman in a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress might if she made a dash across the street to hail a taxi. And this season’s longer-length skirts don’t just impede your movement, they can make you look swaddled unless you’re blessed with endless limbs. Snipping into the outline is a way of trying out a new hemline without being drowned by it.
Having tried on a rail of skirts before settling on this one, my conclusion is this: you need some asymmetry. The DVF wrap dress reference comes in again here. When you wear a wrap dress, there is always a slight overlap of fabric, a visible point where the edge hangs free. The best split skirts echo this by having a slant or a point at the hem. It’s a subtle trick, but it makes it feel as if the split is accidental, a by-product of the skirt having movement.
This is where the split skirt and demure sweater fits into your wardrobe, in case you were wondering: it is an upside down version of the silk-blouse-with-pencil-skirt combination, which we wore to death a couple of years ago. The ingredients are the same, the balance similar, but the dish reworked to make it feel new. It’s a look that will feel silly at breakfast time, slightly dressy at lunchtime and on-point by 7pm. Some days, you have to take a hit on feeling daft at the breakfast table, with your eyes on the after-work prize. The only way to avoid this: Baukjen’s Audley skirt, which sells for about £100. It has a zipped split, which is brilliant because you can adjust it.
Keep the colours simple, and the fabrics matt, and choose a shoe with a bit of edge. The one shoe that really won’t work is a safe court: that takes you into sexed-up office wear territory. Don’t go there.
• Jess wears skirt, £150, gerarddarel.com. Jumper, £32, urbanoutfitters.com. Shoes, £65, office.co.uk.
Photograph: David Newby for the Guardian. Styling: Priscilla Kwateng. Hair and makeup: Laurence Close at Carol Hayes Management using Clinique makeup and L’Oréal hair care.
