As time went by, hemlines would rise more and more. Skirts were called “mini” if they showed at least the knee and at most the buttocks. In the mid-60s, the English royal family declared that at court, skirts would have to fall at least 7 cm above the knee. Even though Princess Diana was in perfect line with this rule with her black skirt-suit that she wore to visit Richard von Weizsäcker on a visit to Germany in 1987, British fashion critic Suzy Menkes wrote: “As a future Queen, you shouldn’t wear clothes so short that men will whistle at you in the street.” Such little fabric and yet so much noise. Firmly decried, it was the symptomatic proof of the moral decline of the youth. The miniskirt is scandalous, a symbol of emancipation. It accompanies the sexual liberation that began at the end of the 50s.

When faced with the thorny question of who invented the miniskirt – Quant or Courrège – and who copied who, there’s more than one answer. One thing is certain: Mary Quant made the first miniskirts at the end of the 50s in London. Since dress lengths were always changing, the process was variable; however, it’s impossible to set a clear and precise birthdate for the miniskirt. In 1959, the hemlines of Quant’s skirts were clearly above the knee. At the same time, André and Coqueline Courrèges were in the works of creating their own couture house, from whence the miniskirt, worn their by twirling models, would go on to conquer the haute-couture world. And so, while the initial momentum for this budding fashion undeniably started in London with “Chelsea girls” as Mary Quant would say, it took the endorsement of Parisian haute-couture masters for it to become a worldwide trend.

In 1969, a fashion reporter from the Daily Express wrote: “The battle is raging, Madame, and the battlefield is your legs.” In this same year, the press commented on Parisian fashion shows and looked for explanations for the chaos that reigned over them: pants, miniskirts, and maxi clothes threatened to dethrone the best sellers of the end of the last decade. The miniskirt eventually lost its supremacy on the runways and showed up in its most extreme incarnation: the micro-mini. This war cry hasn’t gone unheard. It’s been five decades since the miniskirt first showed up on the legs of women, and it still arouses men and inspires fashion designers alike.

Concluding with the words of John Lindsay, mayor of New York in 1967: “A miniskirt is a useful thing. It allows young women to run faster, and because of it, they may have to.”