The return of the miniskirt has been happening gradually – and I’m into it | Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion

Skirts are getting shorter. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but I didn’t want to bring it up until I was sure. At fashion week, the skirts I see on catwalks have been getting shorter for ages, but it’s only in the past year that I’ve really noticed skirts in the wild, the ones that live on pavements and in offices and on trains, following suit. Fashion week is a bubble that doesn’t mean all that much on its own. Lovely clothes on a catwalk are not actually fashion. Fashion is when people start wearing something in real life.

The return of the miniskirt has been happening on the catwalk for three years, at least. Back in 2021, as soon as Paris fashion week came roaring back to life post-pandemic, Dior did a whole collection based on the miniskirt. This felt like it might be significant, because Dior have form for setting hemlines that come to rule the world, from 1947’s full-skirted New Look to the between-knee-and-ankle midi length that dominated the years before Covid blanketed the world under sweatpants. But those immediate post-pandemic years were a funny old time in fashion, where we all talked a good game about being desperate to dress up again but pretty much carried on wearing nap dresses and lazy-girl drawstring-closure stuff.

Things started to rev up in 2022, when Miu Miu came up with a skirt so short that the pocket linings peeked out from below the knicker-height hem, which caused such a sensation within the ecosystem that cares about such things that the Fashion Museum in Bath announced that the Miu Miu miniskirt – despite not being a dress – was named Dress of the Year 2022. Then last year, a preppy vibe started to emerge, with striped shirts, loafers, and pert little skirts with pleats.

And then this year, crucially, I noticed that I wanted to wear shorter skirts. Sorry to make it all about me, but also not sorry, because I honestly think I’m a good litmus test here. I’m not naturally a short-skirt person – the Roman empire of hemlines, for me, will always be a Prada 00s knee-length – so the vibes need to be really strong to nudge me towards a higher hemline. But this spring, the long skirts that once felt fluid felt droopy. Mostly I just wore trousers.

And then summer came … except it didn’t, and mostly it was jeans weather. But on the rare occasions that the sun shone for a day or two, I found myself reaching for an above-the-knee skirt. On summer nights out, I noticed a new going-out uniform on the streets – blazer, short skirt, slicked-back hair, gold hoops. Suddenly a short skirt felt cool and relaxed, rather than trying-too-hard.

The most important element of an outfit is always the silhouette, rather than the colour or the fabric. A new skirt shape unlocks a new look in a way that a sweater in a different colour, or a dress in a different pattern, just doesn’t. Look, to be clear, I’m not in a miniskirt. When I say shorter skirt, it’s all relative. The hemline is nearer the knee than the thigh. But still, it feels liberating, in an almost primal way.

This is not really about whether short skirts suit you or not. You know what looks good on anyone? Being alive to the world around you, being interested in new perspectives, instead of digging in your heels in a futile attempt to resist change. You know what suits everyone? Getting out of a style rut. Life is short. Why shouldn’t your skirt be too?

Hair and makeup: Sophie Higginson using Hair by Sam McKnight and Kama Ayurveda. Styling assistant: Sam Deaman. Model: Claudia at Milk. Blazer, £125, Nobody’s Child. Jumper, £140, Leem. White shirt, £79, Karen Millen. Miniskirt, £199, Maje. Earrings, £65 and ring, £75 both Ottoman Hands