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• October 8, 2009
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Bye Bye Bottoms! From Knee-Length to No-Length, Tracking a Century of Shrinking Hemlines

By Michelle Christina Larsen, Design by Joshua Covarrubias

First we wore skinny jeans too tight to walk in. Then we ditched jeans for leggings, and now we're so liberated we hardly feel like pulling on a pair of tights at all. Yes, the incentive to wear less has been riding up legs for the past 100 years. And in 1920, you could have caused a Model T pile-up walking down the street in the short-shorts you can flaunt now. So, with pop stars and celebrities barely bothering to cover their assets, it's hard to believe the world was once modest to a fault! Below we have a look at the history of hemlines, and how we went from pristine New Look to Ga Ga bottomless.

Opener image: Poiret illustration; Taylor Momsen photo by Eddie Newton/mrnewton.net. 1910s image: Poiret illustration. 1920s image: flapper photo via My Vintage Vogue. 1930s image: Illustration via Glamour Daze. 1940s image: Fashion illustration via Covert Candy. 1950s image: McCall pattern. 1960s image: Twiggy photo via Sixties City. 1970s image: ABBA photo via Idolator. 1980s image: Madonna photo via Hollywood Rag. 1990s image: Cindy Crawford for Versace photo via I Scream Fashion. Now images: Sienna Miller photo via Publisher's Weekly; Daisy Lowe photo via Zimbio; Lady Gaga photo via The Insider.

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