Word: midi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...midi goes to great lengths to look like a loser. Unflattering (except over legs that never quit and hips that never start) and impractical (except to cover up a bad case of knees), the latest dress length seems as anachronistic as the New Look and more of a drag than the bustle...
...that "you can't say to women, 'You've got to drop your hemline 20 inches.' " Still, he is doing just that for some coats and skirts, although he is keeping his dresses short and snappy. Bill Blass is turning out a half-hearted 50%-midi collection; Oscar de La Renta promises to go to "all lengths for spring and summer," but is flinging caution-and leftover minis-aside for a fall collection destined to be 100% pure midi. That will leave him two seasons behind James Galanos, whose current collection shows not so much...
...Midis already account for close to 5% of the dresses currently in stock in most U.S. stores, and French and Italian copies (most of them long-line Valentinos) filtering in this month are pushing minis even farther back on the racks. Last week Ohrbach's ushered in an import collection of 50 styles, each and every one the long length. For Seventh Avenue, the midi could be the answer to every merchant's prayers-a way out of the current buying slump. If midis catch on, they could bolster business by more than 30% this year...
...politicians were discussing was hemlines. The subject heated up as a result of Mme. Georges Pompidou's triumphant American tour with those calf-clutching Longuettes from Paris. In women's eyes, at least, Mme. Pompidou just may have tipped the scales in the year's mini-midi-maxi skirmish. In the front line of the battle, Los Angeles-based James Galanos became the first American designer to drop all hemlines below the knee; Paris' Bernard Lanvin is scraping ankles. Manhattan's Geoffrey Beene alone seems determined to keep the knee in the public domain...
Added Mystery. One designer who refuses to be pushed to damned lengths is Rudi Gernreich: "I'm very much against the midi because it's illogical. It's like going to Mme. Tussaud's." Says Bill Blass, "I'm bored with fashion dictatorship. Women are not going to wear something just because it's publicized...