Miniskirts in the 1960s
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The miniskirt has been with us for some time now. Given my age it will always be most strongly associated with the 1960s than Jessica Simpson or any other bimbo du jour. I was poking around the web looking for a cultural history of the miniskirt and maybe a few early examples. The scanty results of my search surely mean that I didn't dig deeply or diligently enough. But it was just a passing urge.
The best I found was at a site with the charming name Bikini Science. Here's a snippet:
The migration of miniskirt the mainstream is an early 1960s phenomena. The revolution is lead by Mary Quant in England and Andre CourrŠges in France. The legline rises above the knee, exposing successive inches of thigh with each successive year. Young ladies vie as to whom can wear the most scandalous skirts as moralists wring their hands and try to look away.
By the end of the decade the micro miniskirt demonstrates the extreme, a garment with a hemline one inch below the crotch and worn so high that seating without showing panties is functionally impossible. Or as critic James Brady writes in 1969, "Skirts had gone as high as they could architecturally go--any higher, and they would cease to be skirts and become blouses."