If I had to save one thing from my wardrobe in a fire, I’d have to strap a huge plastic box on my back with gaffer tape and brave through the flames because I absolutely love my collection of skirts. As I was folding and arranging them the other day (and you can see I go through this box often as it’s already messed up!) I thought it’s only right that I write an ode here to my darling skirts, justifying why they are dear to me.
1) For me, a skirt can be bought in a hurry. There’s no need to try anything on. All I do is spread two handspans across a waistband and I already know it will fit.
2) It’s much easier to buy crazy skirts than crazy dresses. At least there’s always the chance to balance out the craziness with some normality on top.
3) Playing with lengths is simple. Hiking up, pulling down, even pulling over the bust are all motions at your disposal. A skirt is a tube that is not static.
4) The colours, the patterns, the materials. The same array and range is impossible to extend to trousers.
5) Skirts can come under different guises and shapes. Egg, tulip, pencil, puffball, A-line and many more are there for the taking.
6) They are the basis for layering whether with each other, with trousers, with shorts.
7) Hoisery can be shown off to maximum effect with a skirt. Having socks peeping out from trousers is all very well but then the full impact of a seamed stocking or bright yellow tights are lost.
8) The same thing applies to shoes and boots.
9) I feel freer in a skirt than in a pair of trousers. Perhaps it’s reverse feminism – who knows!
10) Folding up jeans and pinstripe trousers just isn’t as fun as sorting out my skirts into patternations of floral, stripy, geometric and miscellaneous.
