I hope below-the-knee skirts stay in fashion for ever. It won’t happen, but I can dream. I love these skirts with a passion, because they make life easier. A below-the-knee hemline minimises the need for depilation and tanning-related leg admin, saving precious time, money and headspace. Also – and it is hard to overstate the importance of this – a longer skirt hemline works with flat shoes. If you are wearing a knee-length skirt, changing from a high-heeled sandal to a flat loafer can take you from Carine Roitfeld to Mrs Doubtfire with alarming speed, but a shoe change is a breeze in a longer skirt.
I’m going to assume that you have mastered the midi-length skirt by now. The default skirt length has been well below the knee for a good three years now, so there is no excuse for not having grasped that this once frumpy look is the height of chic. Fashion years are a bit like dog years, so this is a reign of Ming dynasty longevity. Anyway, the point is that it’s no longer enough to be, like, I’m wearing a long skirt, check out how on-trend I am, job done. Just getting the length right isn’t impressing anyone in summer 2018. You need to add some detail.
Let me take a wild guess about the midi skirt you already have in your wardrobe. Does it have pleats? Knew it! The pleated skirt has long been the thinking fashionista’s go-to midi. A long, full skirt without pleats can look a little bit too self-consciously ultra-feminine in a 1950s throwback kind of a way. Pleats are slightly nerdy, slightly bookish, and take a skirt from Christian Dior’s flower women to Miuccia Prada’s gallery curators, in a good way.
But your next midi skirt doesn’t need pleats. What it needs, in order to be truly fashionable, is to be asymmetric in some way. It could be buckled at one hip, like a kilt. It could be tied at one side with the hem falling in a diagonal line, like a sarong. It could be a simple A-line up top with a hemline falling at jagged angles. (There are some great floral ones in Zara) Or it could be swagged and gathered to one side, like this one from Cos, which I have fallen in love with.
An off-centre skirt may look challenging on the hanger, but it is, in fact, easier to wear than a simply cut one, because of the way it handily draws the eye away from the waistband and tummy area. And because you have Fashion Content (technical term for Stuff To Look At) on your bottom half, you can go with a plain T-shirt or white shirt and sweater. No need for stripes, or frills, or any other jazz hands. This skirt has got your back .
• Jess wears skirt, £69, cosstores.com. Poloneck, £60, frenchconnection.com. Heels, £55, marksandspencer.com. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Claire Ray at Carol Hayes Management.
