Mini-skirt still favorite in Europe
LONDON (UPI)—In France, the mini-jupe still draws ooh-las-las on Paris boulevards. In Moscow, minyubkus turn heads in Red Square.
Whatever Europeans call it, the mini-skirt remains their favorite hem length, even if the maximidi look is a hot topic of cocktail party controversy.
A survey by United Press International correspondents in European capitals of both East and West—from London where both the mini and maxi first made their mark to Belgrade where Yugoslav beauties lead the Communist fashion world—shows that the new longer hemlines are having an impact but not always the one designers had in mind.
But among the very young and very fashion conscious, the midi and maxi are catching on harder with each successive season in the three main fashion capitals of Paris, London and Rome.
And in London, where fashion trends and helmets probably move faster than any major city in the world, a major clothing manufacturer polled its customers between 25 and 50 years of age and found most wanted skirts just knee high. That is where they will be for fall, the company announced.
—In Budapest, a state-owned clothing factory dutifully turned out a line of the latest maxicoats, sent them to Romanian stores and got them all back several weeks later. None had sold.
Few girls have given up their minis altogether—as any tourist will note on a brief stroll through the streets. In fact, in Paris most skirts seem to have become shorter over the last year—except for a scattering of midis and maxis among younger mademoiselles.
In France, even the refined models turned out by Paris high fashion designers failed to persuade most Frenchmen to accept the long look. A public opinion poll showed 84 per cent wanted the women they escorted to wear short skirts.
Shops in Rome seem to be selling more longer dresses than anywhere else. "We're selling half and half, mini and midi, right now to girls of all heights," said saleswoman Dolores Di Nunno in a women's store near the famous Spanish steps.
In the Santo Agostino chain store, clerks said mini skirts represented only about 20 per cent of sales and the rest were midi and maxi even to "older women."
But on the streets, only an estimated one-fourth of the girls are wearing the longer skirts—changing hem lengths is a serious thing in a country where a bilingual clerk or a legal secretary is lucky to make 15,000 lire ($24) a week and where clothes are top quality but expensive.
In London, where ready-to-wear is so cheap and good that the city has become a shopping haven for women from all over Europe, the longer skirts represent a sizable minority but seldom a majority of the stock in most stores.
The maxi caught on so quickly in Britain partly because manufacturers could produce it for such a low price—a sizable selection of long skirts can be found for about $10 each—that women could afford to experiment.
In Paris, where a $20 skirt is considered a bargain, women cannot and do not gamble the same way. Retailers and manufacturers in that fashion capital have admitted publicly that the entire mini-maxi controversy has depressed sales.
A generally conservative attitude towards fashion right across the European continent also appears to be holding back the maxi-midi trend.
"What is more worrying is that the contagious hesitation about hemlines is overtaking all departments of ready-to-wear," one business analyst said. "Polo shirts, for example, which stores run out of last year, are staying piled on the counters."
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In Germany, a relatively small number of younger girls—mostly under 20—have started wearing cloth and leather maxi-coats over mini-skirts during the past winter, one of the toughest the country had known in years. Only
a small proportion of longer looks were shown in shop windows for spring although several stores said they plan to gamble next fall.
A buyer in one leading Frankfurt store said "We've purchased a wide range of midi-length skirts and suits, but don't plan to put them on sale until autumn. We just don't know how they will go then but we expect the fashion to catch on with the younger women and girls. The older women will never go for them."
"It's awful," said Ellen Denner,
a 22-year-old dictationist in Frankfurt with the sort of slim figure and blonde good looks that create the best effect with the maxi-look. "I love the mini but I think the midi will catch on in the autumn. All the boys I know want us to keep the minis."
In colder Stockholm, minis dominated the scene both in the shops and on the street.
Maxis are few and midis are fewer and Swedish men, like most European males, hate them.
"Would you really like to ruin this city's only beauties?" asked a 27-year-old student Haakan Bergman. "To put a maxi on a girl with beautiful legs would be the same as to cover up the sun."
In Eastern Europe, the story is the same but with interesting variations.
News of the midi-maxi look came to Russia last March 8, Women's Day throughout the Communist world, when the Soviet Union's most prominent designer, Vyacheslav Zaitsev, paraded his comradely models on television in the longer skirts.
"Transition will be gradual, not before autumn, and then you will still see plenty of minyubkas (miniskirts) together with maxi-coats," Zaitsev told them. "But don't get alarmed yet."
Leading fashion houses such as
Dom Modely showed plenty of short dresses with long coats for spring, but the maxi look was not catching on as fast as the miniskirt movement did.
Although the Soviet mass production manufacturers never got around to making minidresses, Russian girls started shortening their own hems and having miniskirts made up by tailors almost as fast as their Western counterparts.
"We shall resist lowering our hemline here longer than our sisters in the west," a pretty chemistry student said. "And our determination to stick with the mini will be strong but sooner or later we shall have to yield to the caprices of fashion."
But if Moscow women want to yield to the maxi-mini vogue, they will not find it in the stores. Their pretty comrades in Belgrade will and do.
At the Centrotextil boutique in the Yugoslav capital's answer to Fifth Avenue, Kneza Mihajlova Street, the 32-year-old proprietor
The occasional film star, tourist or diplomatic resident have been the only ones seen so far walking through the streets in maxicoats although many Russian women never changed from a slightly below the knee length that is almost midi.
Mirko Polimac sniffed with disdain at the mention of the mini.
"It's not fashion that's all," he said. "There will be growing interest in the maxi and midi, even in summer. We are selling them regularly, both dresses and coats. This is high fashion now."
A less avant-garde boutique called Ateks had a different viewpoint. Its 20-year-old salesgirl Jovanna Bajic said the maxi "doesn't stand much of an overall chance against the mini. We've sold maxicoats, but not dresses or skirts. And not midis—in fact, we had a few midis but only sold them after we shortened them."
"If you with litter will disgrace, And spoil the beauty of this place,
BOSTON (UPI)—The Automobile Legal Association says American motorists could well heed the sign at the entrance to the Pleasure Gardens of Ceylon, which reads:
May indigestion rack your chest,
And ants invade your pants and vest."
LITTLE BIT OF ADVICE
There has been only one King John in English history.