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Today, readers, we add a new word to the Fashion Police glossary: meet the “midaxi” skirt!
A new word it may be, but this isn’t exactly a new idea: skirts this length would’ve been pretty commonplace during the early part of the 20th century (and at various times since), and as the name suggests, this is a hem length which falls somewhere between a midi and a maxi. Hence “midaxi”. Clever, huh?
We think we can probably predict what you’re going to have to say about this. ASOS, bless them, have done their best to make the midaxi look appealing, by making it in a bright red colour, and giving the model some skyscraper heels and a dinky little clutch bag:
Even so, this is a REALLY difficult length to wear without looking frumpy. Like it’s younger sister, the midi skirt, this skirt is going to have magic “stumpifying” properties for some of us, drawing a line right across the widest part of the calf, and if you hated the midi, you’ll probably hate the midaxi, too. Lacking the drama of the maxi skirt or the elegance of the midi, it can just hang there, all sad and droopy, just begging to have a large swathe of material chopped off the bottom.
It’s a lot more matronly and old-fashioned (as opposed to charmingly retro) than most shoppers are used to at the moment, so we’re wondering what you’re going to make of it. Will you rush to embrace the midaxi, pleased to have an alternative to the various other options available in the world of hemlines? Or do you think this one is best avoided?
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The Fashion Police’s undercover officers are infiltrating fashion retailers around the country in order to bring you honest, unbiased reviews of the clothing and footwear they find there. Today, they visit Le Redoute to investigate a bright green mini skirt…
Officer: The officer’s identity has been concealed in order not to blow his cover. We can, however, reveal that our officer is 6ft tall, with a waist size of 34″-36″, and is a MAN. Note: THIS IS NOT YOUR CHIEF OF POLICE!)
Item:
Green A-line skirt, £15, La Redoute
Sizing:
Where do we start? This skirt is a UK size 6, which, in my experience (this is the Chief of Police speaking, by the way, although, once again, I feel I need to stress that I am NOT the gentleman in the photo!) corresponds roughly with the much-maligned US size 0. Most size charts will tell you that this is not the case, and that a US 0 corresponds to the rarely-seen UK size 4, however, as someone who shops a lot in both countries, I can tell you that while that may once have been the case, these days a UK6 = US0. Typically, you’d expect an item of this size to have a 24″ waist: our officer’s waist is at least 10″ larger than that, and while the skirt is obviously tighter on him than it appears on the model, that still tells you that the sizing here is seriously off.
What it SHOULD look like
In fairness to La Redoute, our officer didn’t zip the skirt up all the way in these photos, purely because it will (obviously) have to be returned, and we didn’t want to risk damaging it. However, although it would’ve been a bit of a squeeze, it could have been done without too much difficulty. I’d say that if you wanted to wear this, you’d have to go down AT LEAST two, maybe three sizes, to get anything like the right fit. If you normally wear a size 6, meanwhile, that’s too bad: Redoute do offer a size 4 in this particular item, but it’s currently sold out, and given how far out the sizing of this one was, I wouldn’t think one size down would be that much better.
Oh, dear...
Quality:
OK, now for the positive part: sizing aside, this was a really lovely skirt. The material is thick, high quality, and looks like it would wear well. It’s fully lined, and is very nicely made, with concealed pockets, a vibrant colour and a nice, 60s-style design. For £15, I’d say this would be excellent value for money IF the fit was truer to size.
Officer’s comments:
I was really disappointed with the sizing issues with this skirt. We’re all used to variations in sizing between brands, and even between different items from the same brand, but for something to be several sizes larger (or, indeed smaller) than it should be is just ridiculous, and, as I said above, sizes people at the smaller end of the scale out of the market altogether. If a UK6 fits more like a UK12, then you’re excluding everyone smaller than a size 12 from shopping with you, (I’m not saying this skirt would fit a size 12, by the way: I actually have no idea what its true size would be.) which seems pretty short-sighted.
Is this just a one-off? Sadly, I don’t think so. To answer the obvious questions, I double and triple checked both the size label and the dispatch notice to make sure I’d been sent the correct size, and they both labelled the skirt as expected. I guess there’s a chance that the wrong label was attached in the factory, but, having just returned a La Redoute order a couple of weeks ago – this time because items labelled size 4-6 were too large – I’m inclined to think they’re being generous with their sizing, although I’d be very happy to be wrong about that: they’re one of the very few retailers in the UK who stock size 4, for instance, so it would be a shame to see vanity-sizing take away that variety.
VERDICT: Returned.
Anyone else ever shopped with La Redoute? How did you find it?
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Aqua are becoming serial offenders in the real of Strange Skirts: and Strange Other Items, too, to be perfectly honest. We think they’ve outdone themselves with this Half Maxi/Half Mini, though. Come on, Aqua, make your minds up! Surely no one is THIS indecisive? Look, even the model is starting to get all huffy:
Not content with a skirt that will leave one leg out in the cold, however, Aqua continued the strangeness with this Shirt-With-a-Tail:
They call it a “dress”. We call it “what a Fashion Criminal Superhero would wear, if there actually were Fashion Criminal Superheroes. Which there isn’t: there are only villains in the world of Fashion Criminals.”
And just to prove that we’re not totally biased against dresses with weird long bits attached to them, we don’t hate this one:
Oh, who are we kidding? We DO hate it. Just not as much as the other two. Because once you’ve looked at those, even this starts to look not-so-bad, don’t you think?
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Ah, the humble pencil skirt! It’s a true fashion classic, and we’re very glad about that, because the pencil skirt is a Fashion Police favourite, which adds a touch of sophistication to just about any outfit. We’re particularly glad to see so many of them around this winter: it would be wrong to call the current range of pencil skirts a “trend”, because it’s a look that never really gets old, but if it’s a look that you love, you’ve no doubt been finding it a whole lot easier to create it recently, thanks to the many pencil skirts, in every conceivable colour and print, which have been flooding the high street.
(Special credit here to Topshop and River Island for their excellent work in bringing the pencil skirt to the masses this winter: we appreciate it.)
For this roundup, we’ve imposed a “£100-or-less” rule (OK, there’s one skirt which is £101, but we’re not going to quibble over that extra £1), in order to show you some things you might actually buy, rather than drifting off into Fantasy Shop territory.
Tell us: what do you think of pencil skirts? Do you own any? What do you wear with them?
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Good old Zara! The Spanish chain comes to the rescue once again, helping us save £478, were we in the market for a two-toned skirt with white panels at the front and black ones at the side. If we WERE looking for such a thing, we could buy it from Dries Van Noten. It would cost us £504, though, so we have to admit, we’d be much more likely to head to Zara, spend £25.99 and still have enough left for a top and shoes to wear with it, and maybe some lunch while we were out.
The Zara skirt is currently sold out on the website, but can be found on eBay (where you can probably expect to pay more than £25.99), or in-store, if you’re lucky. If you just can’t find it anywhere, though, well, you could always cough up £500 for the designer version, here.
Would you wear this? Which one do you prefer?
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Something we’ve noticed in our years of Fashion Policing, is that most people love feathered mini skirts. Witness:
(Feathered skirts, £79.99: click here to buy them)
You’re already poised to tell us how much you adore these, aren’t you? So today, we’re asking you to explain the appeal. Because while many of our readers think feathered skirts are the cat’s pyjamas, we, on the other hand, tend to think they’re almost as comical as cat’s pyjamas. Seriously, you’re seeing fun, “edgy” fashion here, but we’re just seeing the skinned hydes of Elmo and Grover:
Fashion Icons, 2011
We’re also seeing the glimmerings of a Halloween costume idea, but we don’t want to pay £80 for the privilege, which is what one of these skirts will cost you.
Tell us what we’re missing here, folks. What is it about feathered skirts that makes so many women love them? If you can do this without using the words “quirky” or “edgy” or the phrase “bang on trend”, then you win a cookie from Cookie Monster himself.
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Want to get this high-fashion look on a budget? Easy!
1. Take one bin bag/refuse sack/whatever you like to call them. You know, one of these:
2. Fold it in half, wrap it around your waist and secure with tape. Or something.
3. You’re done! You are now the proud owner of the kind of skirt Marc Jacobs would hawk for £580!
(Note: the Marc Jacobs skirt isn’t actually made out of a bin bag. It just looks like it is.)
Can’t be bothered going to all that trouble? Just click here to buy it, then.
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