For months now, I have been a foot soldier-or if you will, a knee soldier-in the valiant struggle to stop the nefarious World Chic Cartel from inflicting the preposterous ”short” on-or if you will, off-the legs of American women.
It is a struggle worth fighting to the death-or at least until the spring collections-because nothing less than the enormously expensive existing wardrobes of wives everywhere, and what remains of the solvency of husbands everywhere, is at stake.
I am afraid I must report that while we are losing the battle, we are also losing the war.
As with the war in Vietnam, there is always a little light glimmering at the end of the tunnel. Here`s a sampling of the little glimmering light:
In this fall`s Brooks Brothers catalogue for women, THERE IS NOT A SINGLE ”SHORT” TO BE SEEN! For Truly Tasteful ”Our Kind, Dear” UMCs (upper middle-classers) tuned to Brooks Brothers` ”A Woman`s Autumn,” it`s still down to the shins-and for the Truly Really Awfully Tasteful, down to the instep.
More light: A recent survey conducted by me of women`s legs in Paris, New York, Chicago and frumpy Washington-a most thoroughgoing survey, let me assure you-revealed the following:
My friend Dianne the Supermodel has the best legs in America. It also showed:
Paris: supershort, 10 percent; short, 25 percent; mid-knee, 40 percent;
long, 24 percent; none (Le Crazy Horse, etc.), 1 percent.
New York: supershort, 20 percent; short, 50 percent; long, 20 percent;
bag lady, 10 percent.
Chicago: supershort, 2 percent; short, 8 percent; mid-knee, 50 percent;
long, 25 percent; ankle-length down jacket, 15 percent.
Frumpy Washington: supershort, 0 percent (except after dark on 14th Street); short, 2 percent; long, 68 percent; longer, 30 percent.
MINI-MIZED EFFECT?
Yet more light, sort of: In its fall fashion forecast, the Martinsburg
(W. Va.) Journal reported there is ”a general sigh of relief that the mini
(that`s West Virginiaese for `short`) would not sweep the area.”
The brightest news of all from the ”short” battle front, this from a lady friend of mine who is also an intimate of Nancy ”Fashion Legend”
Reagan:
”If you wear `short` with heels, you look like a hooker. If you wear
`short` with flats, you look like a schoolgirl. I am not a hooker and I am not a schoolgirl. I`m sticking with long.”
But, as in Vietnam, the light at the end of the tunnel is invariably followed by the dark. Here`s the dark:
A week after she denounced ”short,” my friend the chum of Nancy R. showed up at a posh frumpy Washington party wearing a ”long” designer suit many inches shorter than it used to be. She confessed to having rolled up the top of the suit`s ”long” skirt until it had become mid-knee.
SLAVES TO FASHION
More dark: My wife, who all summer has dismissed ”short” as frivolity beneath the contempt of a woman of substance, has lately taken to creeping out of her dressing room in ”long” and timorously asking: ”Do I look unfashionable?”
Darker still: I was strolling the UES (Upper East Side) with my friend Dianne the Supermodel the other afternoon when I chanced to opine that
”short” would never make it outside New York. She looked at me as though she were the Pope and I had just opined that God was dead.
”Surely it`s not for Brooke Astor, though,” I said, referring to one of the Three Women Who Run New York Society and Thus the World who also is a maid of more than four score summers.
”No,” said Dianne. ”It`s not for Brooke.”
”And not for Pat Buckley,” I said, referring to another of the all-powerful trio and a maid of, well, certainly more than two score summers and ten. She nodded in agreement.
KNEE-JERK REACTION
A few days later, at the super gala fashion show and dinner-dance bash at Saks Fifth Avenue that Dianne and I both attended, said Mrs. Buckley showed up in a ”short” at least 4 inches above her two score and ten plus knees.
Pitch dark:
Do you recall the idiotic ”Tango Argentina” craze and theatrical spectacular that swept the country last year and had trendies everywhere having their furniture wrecked trying to throw tango parties?
Well, that whole ridiculous business started because a woman named Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis slipped out one night to see an obscure Argentinian revue and pronounced to the world that it was A Neat Thing.
So, a few nights ago, Jackie O. showed up at a swell soiree honoring the 90th anniversary of the Doubleday publishing firm where she edits Truly Tasteful books. She was wearing black-tinted stockings, flat black shoes and a black-and-white silk dress that was, damn it all, tres, tres ”short.”
Gentlemen, I think we`ve lost the war, although Martinsburg, W. Va., may be our last redoubt. –
