Wiggle your way into the new pencil skirt
THE pencil skirt — for ever associated with Mad Men’s Joan and her glorious curves and Marilyn Monroe wiggling along the steam-filled platform in the film Some Like It Hot — is back.
And, good news: this spring’s version has a modern, slouchier cut than its predecessors. As a rule of thumb, if you can’t stride across to the photocopier in the skirt, you’re probably doing it wrong.
On the catwalks for spring, Gucci, Calvin Klein, Max Mara, Fendi, Prada and Victoria Beckham (the latter herself an icon of pencil skirt chic) were among many labels showing the slimline skirt.
To get a handle on the silhouette, it’s worth studying the shapes on Prada’s catwalk — you’ll see they are longer and roomier than pencil skirts of yore and styled with a certain boyish nonchalance.
For the new, skirt-wearing muse, look no further than Meghan Markle, who chose a green take on the trend for her recent Northern Ireland trip.
She wore it with a simple sweater and ever- so- slightly oversized coat, looking every inch the sleek, modern woman of purpose.
The skirt, by Canadian label Greta Constantine, featured a tiny kick flare just below the knee, making it a ‘ hobble skirt’, in fashion-speak.
As historians will tell you, the hobble is the progenitor of the pencil skirt.
It was invented, supposedly, when the first female airplane passenger, Edith Berg, took to the air in a Wright Brothers propellor plane, in 1908, and they tied a rope around her skirts to stop them being caught up in the machinery.
As the story goes, this image caught the imagination of the Parisian fashion designers and a new skirt shape was born. FOR
the classic pencil skirt, we can thank Christian Dior, who produced beautiful, narrow skirt suits in the late Forties and early Fifties and created the definitive pencil in his 1954 H-line collection.
Considering the ongoing fascination with the House of Dior, which has just celebrated its 70th anniversary, and the success of the recent film Phantom Thread, set in a couture house in 1954, it’s small wonder pencil skirts are in the fashion zeitgeist.
I have always been slightly scared of the pencil skirt. It’s just a shade too close to bodycon dressing for me. But that all changed last summer, when I bought a Boden Icons skirt: mid- calf length, front split, made from a heavy twill cloth and embellished with folkloric embroidery.
Why? Because it is so flattering. The secret lies in the structure of the fabric.
As Christian Dior might have been inclined to comment (if he were alive today), a skirt that requires suction underwear to achieve a smooth line is not a skirt worth buying. In this vein, Alexa Chung’s fabulous front- split pencil in Prince of Wales check, a fabric trend that is going nowhere for autumn, has caught my eye (£295, net-a-porter.com). It is lined and would look equally good with a ribbed knit and a block-heeled loafer as with a wow blouse and heels.
On the High Street, I love Asos’s side-buttoning version (£30, asos.com), which will be perfect for warm weather office dressing. Style it with a button-through silk shirt and a mid-heeled sandal.
What’s the key to styling your pencil skirt so it looks fresh, not dated or vampy? On the shoe front, keep your heel height in check. On top, it’s all about ease. Think Lauren Hutton in a masculine/feminine shirt in the Seventies. Or refer to Meghan, wearing a light knit that cocoons, rather than hugs, the body.
When shopping for your newlook skirt, go for a style that puts you in mind of an hourglass. If it strays anywhere near Rizzo from Grease territory, step away from the rail.