JEAN RHYS knew a thing or two about style and, in particular, about the hauteur conveyed by the sweep of a hem. In her novel “Wide Sargasso Sea,” a Goth-tinged prequel to “Jane Eyre,” Christophine, a servant, lets the tail of her skirt fan out behind her — a gesture of breeding, the reader is told. Hitching up one’s hem, on the other hand, sends quite a different message. When your man is abusive, Christophine advises her young Creole mistress, just “pick up your skirt and walk out.”
“There is definitely a movement to a very lengthy look, especially among the young,” said Nevena Borissova, a partner in Curve, a progressive retailer with stores in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. Ms. Borissova favors radically stretched-out skirts and dresses that “drag on the floor, with raw edges, and worn with combat boots,” she said. And as she pointed out, these myriad calf- or ankle-grazing iterations of the milelong skirt bear no relation to “Big Love” or, for that matter, the Summer of Love.
There is nothing remotely prim or saccharine about the latest interpretations of this look, with their distinctly urban overtones. Current versions, even the most languid, are likely to be toughened up with a military parka or a biker jacket and thick-soled shoes. A muted, and at times ascetic, successor to the sweet-as-a-bonbon, Hamptons-worthy maxi-dresses that first alighted on downtown streets a couple of summers ago, the new maxis are more Morticia than Ophelia. They are “darker and more sophisticated” than last summer’s flounced beach dresses, said Morgan Yakus, a partner in No.6, a haven for style-setters in downtown Manhattan.
More tellingly, perhaps, they represent a seductive — make that subversive — alternative to the jeans, leggings and showily girly micro-minis that pop up like ragweed with the first mild breeze. They are “fashion’s backlash to the short skirt,” Ms. Yakus suggested.
Sharon Graubard, a senior executive with Stylesight, a trend forecasting firm in New York, predicted that while the maxi trend is “forward” — that is, positioned well outside the mainstream — it would be adopted by “the same cutting-edge girls who first embraced the micro-mini” and would pick up steam as fall approaches. Cool-weather variations from houses as diverse as Louis Vuitton, Haider Ackermann, Ann Demeulemeester and Missoni, and even the calf-length renditions Marc Jacobs unveiled in New York last winter, are “really going to change women’s eyes,” Ms. Graubard said.
SPAWNED, though rather tepidly received, in the 1970s, the latest maxis have been filtered through the hair-shirt sensibility of the early ’90s, when excessive consumption gave way to an attitude of piety exemplified by a kind of monastic look — “fashion’s little penance,” as Amy Spindler termed it in The New York Times in 1993.
Today the fluid but rigorously plain maxis reflect a subtly shifting cultural climate born in the wake of the Dow’s collapse. Maxi-dressing “speaks to a movement,” said Colleen Sherin, the women’s fashion director of Saks Fifth Avenue, adding that the subdued and often monochromatic skirts and dresses appeal “to women who want something less ostentatious and care more about quality than flash.” Committed to opulent but understated interpretations of the style, Saks recently showcased long, blanket-like cashmere skirts by Michael Kors in its windows.
An elongated silhouette also represents a turning away from the frivolity and calculated provocation of a thigh-high skirt “toward a more austere sensibility,” said Holli Rogers, the buying director for Net-A-Porter, which highlights and sells long tanks from Helmut Lang (a side-split jersey maxi, $330), Stella McCartney (a long silk shirtdress, $1,115) and L’Agence (a cross-back jersey maxi, $200) on its Web site. “People are accepting a more muted, covered-up feeling and moving on,” she said.
Siena Scarritt, a sales assistant at No. 6, wears long bias-cut skirts most days of the week. “They make me feel tall and elegant,” she said, “and I like their feeling of movement.”
Sandra Bohbot of Bisou Bisou, the family-owned fashion chain where she works, said she enjoys the way her longish Chloé skirt plays around her calves. Ms. Bohbot, who has sworn off micro-minis — for the moment, at least — has found herself wearing longer skirts almost exclusively, because, she said, “I began to feel that wearing short is unclassy.”
Street-sweeping skirts have been embraced by a handful of vanguard merchants offering elongated tank dresses, tubular skirts, taper-slim halter dresses and one-shoulder columns. Less common but perhaps appealing to women still on the fence about the full-on maxi are versions like one by Yohji Yamamoto for Y-3, hiked to the knee in front and pooling in a train at the rear. Mr. Yamamoto, it should be noted, is one of the Japanese provocateurs who introduced more voluminous versions of the look more than two decades ago.
Fast-fashion outposts like Topshop and Forever 21 sell their own variations of the newly slender maxi. Zara, too, has budget-friendly interpretations, including a black floor-length pleated tank dress and an earth-tone hip-slung skirt. While Zara does not disclose sales figures, a spokeswoman said that maxi-skirts and dresses have proved so successful that it plans to reissue some styles and add others throughout the fall.
No. 6, an early proponent of the look, sold out its long dresses within days after they arrived in late April, Ms. Yakus said. She plans to restock with ’90s-era monastic pieces from Donna Karan and Ghost, the British label known for its flowing, unembellished shapes.
Popular as they are with the nose-ring and chunky-boot set, maxi-skirts have only lately surfaced in the influential fashion glossies. In its April issue, Vogue showed lean, ankle-length skirts for day from the likes of Marni and Ann Demeulemeester, suggesting, however, in a cautious codicil, that “they work best on taller women.”
Will the street-length skirt endure? Even its most ardent proponents will tell you, that depends. “People are waiting to see trendsetters like Kate Moss wearing it,” Ms. Borissova of Curve suggested. “Then they’ll take a chance.”
She maintained, nonetheless, that by fall, a long, lean silhouette could be driving sales. “Five years from now,” she insisted in a whoosh of enthusiasm, “we’ll all be wearing maxis.”
And fending off the advances of unsavory-looking strangers with an insolent hitch of the hem.
