Fashion Victim: Mullet Skirts

I was kind of perplexed after my last post. I kept perusing fashion coverage from the awards show season, and I kept hoping against hope that the Fug Girls were just off their mark. What the hell were they talking about, a mullet skirt? And there were moooore of them? And Stella McCartney put them on the runway a few years ago? It can’t be. It really can’t be.

We’re not talking about just a little train here. (Not that I’m advocating trains. Trains are for brides (sometimes), travelling (yes please), or playing with with on a miniaturized electric track set.) They kept popping up on red carpets, and I’ve been here pulling my hair out. A few years ago one or two of the would have been just merely unfortunate and laughable (truth be told, anything that Miley wears is), but when at least one showed up at every major event on the awards circuit this year I’m starting to think we have a problem. To wit—Jennifer Hudson at the Grammys (Grammies?):

Gomez at the People’s Choice:

Leighton Meister at the Country Music Awards (what?):

etc, etc.

There is a certain logic that I can almost tap into. I was a total disgusting barf romantic ball-gown girl when I played dress up as a kid—I’d grab the floatiest fabrics cut into the biggest, fullest circle skirts and twirl and twirl and twirl until I literally fell over against something. So I completely get the romance of a full, puffy ball-gown and I certainly love me some getting gussied up on a big night. But even me, the queen of indecision, recognizes that there are times when a choice fundamentally needs to be made: bare legs with a skirt that goes allllll the up to there, or the drama of something longer, fuller, romantic. And much like the perplexing dilemma of sandal shooties, to merely refuse to choose and opt for a hybrid bastard of your options never looks anything better than functionally, sartorially inept. It’s the fashion equivalent of Paris in the front and the Duggars in the back.

I can think of so many reasons why these are hideous. Number one: unless you’re literally aiming for a labia-grazer à la Cyrus, the ‘business in the front’ hem optimally hits mid-thigh and then drags on the ground in the back. Leaving not merely the thigh on show, but creating an optimal frame for the most unattractive of all body parts (save the feet), the knees. Nothing can transform anyone’s knees from looking like a geriatric’s sagging ass. Realistically, if even the notoriously spank-bank-able Jessica Alba can’t make hers look less than vile, what hope do we mere high-street dwelling mortals have?

Yet knees persist in being ridiculously on-trend. Who would have thunk it. I was beginning to think, with maxi skirts and midi skirts and tailored trousers being so of-the-moment, it would soon be time for me to come out of hiding. I sadly mis-under-estimated the force of overexposure. Literally.

But naturally, nothing makes more sense in the world of style than to take something with maximum coverage and turn it into a beach coverup. At least then you have an excuse for leaving the house in your underwear.

Or forgetting your underwear altogether.

Secondly, it’s a telling piece of evidence confirming the existence of CGS (Canadian Girl Syndrome). Symptomatic of the ‘testing of the water stage,’ typically encountered post-Groundhog day through to the end of March. Not quite in the balmy positives, once the temperate mid-range temperatures are reached (usually within the range of -5° to 0°), the season is ripe for clothes than both enclose and expose, as primarily evinced by the popularity of slashed leggings (and running nylons under flannels (no pants), and knee-high socks with super short skirts (no tights) and…) in past years. I was entertaining the hope that these would die with the impending incarceration of La Lohan (a girl can dream!). But the new iteration that’s been clothing the legs of Toronto’s youngest and dumbest proves that like the common cold, this look is impossible to squelch. Behold, the knee-hole legging.

Nevermind the fact that these intentionally distressed pieces of overpriced lycra look like the fifteen pairs of well-worn and threadbare leggings you’ve stashed in a corner of your closet and not yet disposed of (for shame!). Nevermind the fact that these things strongly intimate a severe case of rug-rash (unlike the hilariously suggestive knee-pad leggings that pushed La Loh’s brand 6126 irreparably into the toilet).