You either die the hero or live to see yourself as the villainIt is immediately recognizable. Posted in numerous Instagram pictures and featured on magazine covers, the Miu Miu micro miniskirt has easily become the most desired piece of clothing of the Spring/Summer 2022 season.
Debuting in the Spring/Summer 2022 season collection of Miu Miu, the younger sister brand of Prada, the haphazardly cut khaki micro miniskirt paired with a daringly cropped sweater was an immediate standout piece. Designed by Miuccia Prada, the skirt captures the current fashion landscape with the two most influential trends of the season: academic-inspired wear combined with a strong Y2K influence.
We are now on the shortening side of the hemline wave, going as far as seeing simply a belt as a skirt on Diesel’s FW 2022 ready-to-wear. Micro miniskirts seem to be the determined destination after our brief affair with midi skirts. However, to fully appreciate the art of the Miu Miu miniskirt, we must recall its inception.
The miniskirt made its first modern debut in the 1960s as a definitive piece of the ‘youthquake’ era. With the invention of birth control, the miniskirt was representative of the new freedoms and sexual liberation in store for women at the time. Mary Quant, inventor of the miniskirt, attributed the clothing piece’s rise to the growth in sexual expression as well as shifting societal dynamics. The miniskirt can be a synechdoche for an unabashed search for female sexual pleasure, the chase for sex without the goal of conception. Predictably, miniskirts were a contentious fashion piece, with men shaking their fists and scorning these morally bankrupt women with bare legs.
However, when we look at the micro miniskirt today, its popularity depicts something much different. The short hemline has become a standard rather than a choice. As a woman, I rarely encounter items, other than pants, that cover the knee. Instead, a more revealing type of dress is standard, leaning into a culture of inescapable objectification.
Even as a child, I strongly recall shopping in middle school and being unable to find summer clothes in the children's section that I felt comfortable in, as practically every shorts option cut above midthigh. We’ve got to admit there’s something messed up about Abercrombie Kids selling pushup bikinis.
Fashion often stands as a type of social currency. When trends change, those most sensitive to social inclusion — teenagers and young adults — feel obligated to abide by current trends. Thus, these short hemlines, once a depiction of rebellion to patriarchal norms, have become a tool for it, evolving to a standard sexualization of girls as young as elementary schoolers.
The Miu Miu skirt has set the impetus for a shortening hemline which may have unintended harms to girls and women.
