Word: minis
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...decision begins. Home from vacation, they face the most difficult fall shopping dilemma in decades: whether to go for the midi. Not since Christian Dior's 1947 New Look has a descending hemline raised such a furor. Men denounce the midi as a threat to the golden days of mini ogling; women insist that it will make them look old, or ugly, or dumpy, or sawed-off?or all of these; and the fashion industry has been deeply split by its advent...
...battle rages in millions of American homes, from the White House to the Chicago split-level whose car boasts a bumper sticker that proclaims: "Mini yes, Midi no!" "I feel this is a graceful length for me," says Pat Nixon. Says her daughter, Julie Eisenhower: "I think most midis are ugly, dowdy." Bill Fine, president of Bonwit Teller, thinks?one might say hopes?that "the longer lengths have manners, more style. Perhaps it has something to do with moral awareness." A protest signed by 335 customers of the Sanger-Harris store in Dallas reads: "We object strongly to being suppressed...
Still, there is plenty of resistance. "These things evolve better if they are not pushed too hard," says Vincent DePaul Draddy, president of David Crystal, Inc. "The mini crept up over a period of years. The midi should now creep down over a number of years." It well may. Around the saltwater pool at Harbor Beach, Mich., a resort frequented by well-to-do Detroiters and St. Louisans, a group of women took a pledge this summer to use pantsuits to tide them over the midi indecision. Many women elsewhere apparently feel the same way. Across the country, pants sales...
...Completely" is too strong by far, but many in the fashion trade have indeed placed huge stakes on Fairchild's gamble. Because of the recession and the mini-midi hesitation of American women, fabric mills have slowed down, clothing manufacturers have gone out of business or "into suspension," and retailers are hurting. If hemlines go down far enough, women will have to buy complete new wardrobes; midi dresses, skirts, coats; belts and bags; higher-heeled shoes and boots. That could mean millions of dollars in sales, and security for thousands of jobs. Katherine Murphy, a fashion coordinator for Manhattan...
Retailers, obviously, have been thinking about the risk of poor Longuette sales. Paris and Seventh Avenue have decreed an end to the mini for this fall, but the consumer vote will not be in for some weeks. As a result, Macy's is hedging. At the end of the ad, it acknowledges that it will continue to offer short skirts...