On the Frontier... Again

Fashion ultimately serves a basic human need: clothing for life. Therefore, fashion represents changing attitudes and desires of society more accurately even than visual art or music. And sometimes, recurring societal attitudes lead to recurring fashion trends.

Skirt lengths and sizes captivate misogynist societies’ efforts to incapacitate women’s potential by popularizing objectifying clothing.

In “Gone with the Wind,”

Scarlet O’Hara’s entire identity seems to hinge on her wardrobe. She obsessed over maintaining a perfect figure by undereating and even refusing to have more children. Corsets forced women’s waists to appear narrower and their breasts to appear fuller, realizing men’s fetishes of hourglass figured women. The voluminous skirts made any sort of active lifestyle impossible; all the ladies even needed to lay down to nap together, relieving themselves of their exhausting attire.

Today, women’s clothing continues to realize male fetishes, thus inhibiting the wearers from achievement and equality. Skirts continue shortening and shortening, exposing more and more of women’s legs and acclimating our society to the sight of a women’s fully bared legs.

Going corsetless or bustleless in Scarlet’s time would have been fashion suicide. Longer skirts today come in dowdy fits or bland patterns, so women have been left with the choice of either being out of style or objectifying themselves.

Thankfully, the American Frontier necessitated a change in women’s clothing. My Antonia

by Willa Cather captivates the Frontier as a space to free themselves from patriarchy. Men could no longer afford to force women beneath them, because they needed women’s help to till the soil and blaze the trails. Thus, frontierswomen adopted flowing skirts that drug the floor. This "prairie skirt" preserved a sense of femininity while giving women greater freedom to move about and work.

Just as other points of great change, today is a time when women are rushing to the workplace and overtaking men at the universities. Therefore, the Fall/Winter 2010 runways featured a plentitude of prairie skirts. Designers created long skirts for every time of day; Michael Kors’ makes the perfect substitute for the pencil skirt or pant suit in the office. Dries Van Noten and Marc Jacobs created long skirts balancing practicality with intimacy, perfect for date night. Richard Chai Love and Peter Som paired floor length skirts with heavy sweaters, belted cardigans, and other top combinations for fun springtime alternatives to less modest options.

They say history repeats itself. Fashion attests to that, this season to the delight of women seeking professional, daytime, or nighttime options that keep mystery alive.