Forbidden Fruit #1: The Miniskirt
Short and sweet.
Welcome to the first edition of Forbidden Fruit, a series that focuses on pieces of clothing I wasn’t allowed to wear when I was younger and how I style them now.
If you’ve followed my outfit posts on Instagram, it’s probably obvious: I’m a ho for a miniskirt.
When miniskirts first entered my personal zeitgeist, I was in junior high. In the late 2000s, it was all about denim miniskirts worn with calf- or ankle-length leggings. Like most trends, I resisted for a while, but the longer I looked at it, the more I wanted to join the crowd so much it hurt.
Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to wear anything shorter than knee length; I was told I should be modest at all times. While these church standards applied to all my Mormon friends, some had less strict parents when it came to fashion. I was often the only one wearing Bermuda shorts on a hot summer day while my friends seemed at home in short shorts or mini dresses. When I was nineteen, I went through the Mormon temple and received my garments—the Mormon underwear I was supposed to wear 24/7 that covers everything from our shoulders to our knees. (Mormons usually go through this ritual either before going on a religious mission or before getting married.) My mom told me she was strict about modesty because she was preparing me for the transition to garments; she hoped it wouldn’t be jarring for me like it might have been for friends accustomed to mini dresses and tank tops.
In junior high, I argued with my parents that I should be able to wear a denim miniskirt over leggings. It seemed like a loophole to me: my legs were covered by the leggings, so the miniskirt wouldn’t actually be that revealing. But as a small child with no money to my name, I was overruled. I watched from the corners of my junior high hallways (that were always inexplicably dark?) as girls with less restrictive rules walked around freely in what I coveted.
Trends are tricky—some actually do last and some make us cringe in hindsight. (Take the miniskirt and leggings for instance, of which there is little evidence it even existed on the internet!) But the miniskirt on its own has spanned the test of time, at least since around 1960, when it first appeared in a shop called Bazaar in London. The inventor of the miniskirt is disputed in the fashion world, but most say either English designer Mary Quant or French designer André Courrèges. Quant was one of the first designers to say women’s clothes were not only useful for keeping us warm, but that they can attract attention and improve confidence. Of her design, she once said, “A miniskirt was a way of rebelling.” She also credits the miniskirt not to herself or to Courrèges, but instead to “the girls in the street.”
Designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Dolce & Gabbana followed suit, building entire collections around the miniskirt. Coco Chanel called it “just awful.” When Dior didn’t feature miniskirts in their runway show in 1966, women took to the streets for an iconic protest, solidifying miniskirts as a fashion staple. No one could stop the miniskirt from continuing, evolving to even shorter hemlines (micro-skirts, anyone?), including new colors and fabrics and silhouettes, and even becoming a celebrated part of women’s business wear.
The history of the miniskirt—and its symbolism of liberation and vulnerability—did not feel applicable to me as a Mormon girl. I admired pictures of women from the ’60s and ’70s, with their teased hair and long eyelashes, caught in perfect candid shots, looking free in ways I couldn’t comprehend. I had to separate myself from the idea that I could have what they had, because in my mind, I couldn’t.
The only time I wore anything similar to a miniskirt and leggings was on Halloween in 2009, the holiday either a loophole to my parents, or a night I simply snuck the costume behind their back. My friend and I dressed up as “aliens,” which meant shiny clothes, and I wore shimmery leggings underneath a pair of running shorts. I remember feeling free and exposed all at once, but ultimately loving that I was wearing what I wanted. Any time I could—around the house or by the pool, basically—I wore short hemlines to feel like I wasn’t trapped in a bubble of conformity.
You’d still find me in skirts throughout my youth—especially when I got older, obtained a driver’s license, and earned my own money. I’d go out and buy skirts and dresses that toed the line of what my parents decided was modest, and I hid my outfits (lots of tugging and pulling hemlines down and holding my backpack in front of my legs) before heading out the door each morning for school. Sometimes I got away with it, and sometimes I didn’t.
Trends are tricky x2—what was once shocking can become completely ubiquitous. I remember people yelling, “Leggings are not pants!” as ferociously as they might debate hot-button political issues today. Once, on a trip with my family the summer before my senior year of high school, I was wearing leggings as pants and threw a skirt over them to head to the beach. I didn’t think of it as an answer to the late 2000’s trend, but there I was, walking in public, in full view, none of us even thinking twice about what was on my body.
Now, you’ll catch me in miniskirts extremely often as I head out into the world. I can’t stop lately—they feel indelible to my style as a post-Mormon woman, especially as one who likes to mix hi/lo styles, like pairing an athletic jacket I stole from my husband with a miniskirt some might call “fancy.” Miniskirts fit my figure better than those with longer hemlines; I’m on the shorter side with an hourglass figure, and miniskirts help elongate what longer skirts cut off. I can finally wear what works on my body as opposed to what is supposed to work for the general Mormon body.
Wearing miniskirts didn’t start out as rebellion—more as experimentation. But I can’t help feeling a sort of camaraderie with the women at the 1966 protest now when I slip one on. I’ll start the chant, you join in: miniskirts forever.
Here's eight ways I’ve styled miniskirts lately.
A salute from me to you,
Abi