The Long Way Out

All through the summer the questions loomed over the fashion horizon: Whither the midi? Would autumn, and the return to real clothes, find women taking the downward drift in stride, their minis in mothballs, their legs in hiding? Designers scoffed at alternatives, and so-called smart stores had little else in stock. But October is here and almost gone, and only the leaves are falling; skirts are just about as short as ever. All told, the mid-calf hemline seems clearly a long-lost proposition.

The verdict is nationwide. New York's Daily News, whose pollsters have miscalled only three out of 30 major U.S. elections, canvassed more than 22,000 readers this month, reported 83% wearing skirts above the knee (a percentage in accord with the daily "Hem Line Index," compiled by Manhattan's Women's Haberdashers shops and posted in the window of the main store). Sales figures for the midi are harder to come by, though a representative of a chain of Boston dress shops admits, "Business is not as bouncy as we would like."

More Alterations. Washington, D.C., merchandisers report a steady flow of "bring-backs," generally attributable to husbands whose passions, and fountain pens, run dry at the midi. Trial selections of mid-calf fashions sold so poorly that stores in Miami, Atlanta and Portland ordered only 10% of their fall stock in the longer lengths, are getting little help from customers in reducing even that small fraction. At a Los Angeles fundraising party for Governor Reagan this month, a cool three out of 450 lady guests turned up in midis; the rest brazened it out in long gowns or pants. Even the handful of long skirts sold at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, Calif., are being shortened before being taken out in public. Says a company spokesman, "We're doing more alterations now than at any time in the history of the store."

In part, the resistance to the midi was caused by the all-out, hard-sell approach. "It was presented as a look that had to be very carefully accessorized, very carefully put together," contends Los Angeles Times Fashion Writer Alan Cartnal. "Now who's going to bother with that at a time when half the girls at U.C.L.A. haven't had on anything more complicated than a pair of jeans since the organdy number they wore on their eighth birthday?" There were also economic drawbacks. "A recession," says Mrs. Jean G. Bowen, an administrative assistant at Harvard Medical School, "hardly seems the time to introduce a major fashion change that will require tossing out most of one's wardrobe." There have also been purely aesthetic complaints: "They are goofy and unattractive," says Mrs. James Mag-in of Chicago. "Terrific, if you want to look like a walking gunny sack," says Los Angeles Advertising Executive Adrienne Hall. The Women's Liberation movement presented a rationale for the midi's downfall. "I see resistance to the midi as part and parcel of the whole rebellion thing," says C.C.N.Y. Psychology Professor Morton Bard. "The fashion industry may be ruled by fat cats pulling strings, but now women are saying, 'We're going to resist.'"

The fat cats themselves tried to produce a palatable way to sidestep the midi in a last-gasp promotion of "a wardrobe of many lengths." Women who never did regard their knees as national assets can settle for skirts that stop at the top of the shin without risking dowdiness. Full-length dresses, particularly multi-patterned gypsy gowns, are getting by as bona fide street wear. Pants, of course, are the most popular solution; theaters, airlines, nightclubs and offices, even municipal and federal departments and agencies, have revoked earlier anti-trouser legislation. At least two New York restaurants are now focusing on a new fashion scapegoat: both Peartree's and the Hudson Bay Inn refuse admission to ladies in midis.

Surprisingly, European women, renowned for their activity in Resistance Movements during wartime, have shown little backbone (and even less leg) in defying the fashion czars. Paris stylists report that a midi skirt with a tucked-in pullover sweater is this autumn's uniform. One department store, Au Printemps, is selling ten midis for every three shorter styles, and boutiques like Yves Saint Laurent's Rive Gauche are constantly having to reorder weekly to meet the demand. A short skirt on Rome's Via Condotti is as hard to find as a meal without pasta; in London, a shipment of midi suits and skirts to one large Oxford Street department store one day last week was gone the same afternoon.* Even Vienna and Warsaw report that the midi is on the march.

But American women just aren't having any. One fashion-conscious Washington coed brought back a smart midi ensemble from a European vacation --and has not worn it once since she stepped off the jet. Nancy Hanks, Director of the National Endowment for the Arts, made it all the way through a White House luncheon in her midi, returned to her office in a depression only her seamstress could lift. Even within the supposedly stout ranks at Women's Wear Daily, dissent reigns: confessed a staffer on assignment in Chicago, "I bought three--just enough to get me through while John Fairchild [WWD's publisher] was in town."

Die-hards in the industry insist that the midi still has a chance. Fall may have come too early this year, they say. Post-Christmas sales will tell the tale; the trend-setting stores, after all, will have nothing to offer but midis. The lure of a bargain is sure to break the little woman's will. Then again, a recent obituary notice in the Fresno Bee presented another, more realistic appraisal: DEAD: THE MIDI DRESS, FROM ACUTE REJECTION BY THE AMERICAN WOMAN.

* Although Princess Margaret, making her first public appearance midied up, did not fare so well: "Nothing is going to do more for the mini," wrote the Daily Mirror's Felicity Green.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.