To Knee Or Not to Knee?
In Milan, A Revived Debate Over Hemline Lengths

By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 23, 2008

MILAN, Feb. 22 -- For the first time in recent memory, the fashion industry here is engaged in a lively runway debate about hemlines.

The idea is so dusty and retro that one might half expect designers to start in on girdles and millinery at any moment. The thought of anyone bothering to waste precious seconds contemplating such a 1960s topic is laughable. And it only provides more evidence for those stubbornly committed to the notion that fashion is an industry wholly removed from the concerns of average people.

Even for most designers, the question of hemlines had fallen by the wayside. There would occasionally be a resurgence of mini-dresses -- a loving nod to youth, rock-and-roll and the fact that good legs tend to last a lifetime. But mostly, hemlines had settled in at the widely flattering position of just slightly above or below the middle of the knee. Give or take a few inches, there wasn't much to discuss.

But for fall 2008, designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana -- long known for their hyper-sexy aesthetic sensibility -- rallied their creative efforts to champion mid-calf skirts. Shocking! Meanwhile Donatella Versace and Gucci's Frida Giannini continue to emphasize the appeal of dresses with hemlines that remain significantly above the knee.

That's more than a difference of a few inches. That's a matter of feet. And that means Dolce and Gabbana have taken aim at a pop culture icon.

For so long, the strong, sexy, powerful woman has been defined in film, television and fashion as someone who strides confidently through life in high heels. Her long legs are bare. Her dress is short.

That traditional image has been the conceit of a multitude of advertising campaigns, from Dolce and Gabbana themselves as well as Versace, which recently featured Madonna as a vamped-up executive. Short skirts and lots of leg defined the aesthetics for everything from "Sex and the City" to the current duo of television shows detailing the lives of high-powered, well-dressed women: "Cashmere Mafia" and "Lipstick Jungle." Everything that modern fashion fairy tales have taught customers is that glamorous power women -- not to be confused with real-life power women -- dress like Wilhelmina Slater, not Betty Suarez.

The designers at Dolce & Gabbana are asking women not to simply lower their hemlines, but to rethink a long-held fantasy about what it means to be powerful and, even more, to dress the part. The Italian design team argued for the longer length in both its signature collection, which was presented Thursday afternoon, as well as in its D&G label, a line aimed at 20-something customers.

In the D&G show, which was earlier in the week, the collection was filled with plaid kilts that sat high on the waist and reached far below the knees. There were argyle sweater sets that were roomy and notably not cropped. The sweaters settled in just at the hips. The trousers were still tight but they didn't sit too low on the hips, and the dresses had full skirts and would look just fine if one happened to be named Laura Ingalls Wilder or Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

It's not that the clothes are unattractive. The designers inject a significant amount of joyfulness into these frocks, and the lightness of the dresses keeps them from being matronly. They simply seem to be part of a distant past in which all that extra fabric was like a metaphor for women being weighed down, trapped and obscured. Isn't championing such modest, unsexy attire akin to asking women to take a step back? To relinquish some of their sexual freedom? Or is a lot of va-va-voom more of a burden than anything else?

The collection that they showed for their signature label was more luxurious and richer than D&G. That gave the clothes the look of heirlooms rather than costumes. The fur print dresses played tricks on the eye, making one do a double take while wondering how on earth the designers managed to make fur move with such lightness. The skirts and trousers in fine tweeds showed off the designers' considerable tailoring skills as well as their ease in working with a woman's curves.

And it would be hard to resist the metallic cylinder-heeled oxfords in crocodile or python or embroidered with sparkling sequins. They were like candy to the eyes. One glance at them makes a single word pop into one's head: WANT!

The designers called the collection sensual and aristocratic. But that length still seems so old-fashioned, so stuffy, so unsexy. It may be this is one of those instances in which the eye needs time to adjust. Perhaps all that's ultimately necessary is for some stylist to put a longer skirt on the right starlet to make folks say, "Oh, yeah. Now we get it." But in glancing at the designers' front row, stocked with the singers Fergie and Sheryl Crow, actressLindsay Lohan and model Naomi Campbell, it's hard to imagine any of those women willing to wear such camouflaging clothes. Indeed, Lohan -- high heels, lots of visible bare legs, mini-dress -- looked positively baffled by what she was seeing on the runway.

Donatella Versace

There was nothing puzzling about Donatella Versace's collection, which she presented Thursday and which served as the informal finale to Milan fashion week. It evoked the traditional fantasy of female power.

To be sure, no one truly expects a female executive or power broker to show up in a boardroom wearing a pair of violet peau de soie platform stilettos and a dress that comes to mid-thigh -- although that combination looked quite enticing on the Versace runway. But in the years since the workplace acknowledged that women did not have to dress like men in order to succeed, the freedom to bring femininity into the corner office has been interpreted by the fashion industry as bringing sex appeal, beauty and sensuality to it.

For fall, Versace was inspired by the Dutch-born artist Tim Roeloffs, who created collages that she turned into prints. His whimsical images adorned the hemlines of Versace's fuchsia and yellow dresses, with their grand folds and sweeping back panels. Of all the designers who present collections in Milan, Versace is the one whose models move with the greatest strength and confidence. There's nothing robotic about them. Each one looks as though she has something interesting on her mind as she makes her way around the circular runway.

Dsquared, Gucci, Fendi and Marni

Other designers played up the traditional image of female self-possession and authority. At Dsquared, the designers Dan and Dean Caten left behind their naughty -- sometimes NC-17 -- shenanigans to present a collection that was tailored from British-style tweeds and plaids. It was modest, but with just enough red lipstick and vamping by the models to let the audience know that they hadn't mistakenly stumbled into a staid Aquascutum show.

At Gucci on Wednesday evening, Giannini reminded her audience that she is a diehard lover of short dresses. But while Versace's conveyed womanly confidence, those at Gucci looked more like something that a giggly girl might choose -- albeit a girl with an inordinately generous allowance.

Giannini was inspired by Bohemians and rock-and-rollers, one of her favorite sources for creative ideas. The collection was a blend of flirtatious mini-dresses in psychedelic prints and embellished with gold studs and sequins. The idea of toughness was conveyed in the heavy metal belts that were slung around the hips on skirts as well as the tight-fitting trousers.

There were coats with gold-studded shoulders, and fur was used as casually as another designer might incorporate denim. One particularly indulgent item was a cropped bomber jacket made from black astrakhan. Giannini excels at capturing the spirit of a rocker chick but she struggles to blend that rebellious nature with the elusive notion of "chic." That's what will ultimately separate her lively sensibility from something that could be found elsewhere in a crowded marketplace where even the least expensive garments from the Gap on down come with a designer point of view.

Chic is not merely about using expensive fabrics or incorporating hand embroidery or artisanal details. It's more subtle than that and speaks to a level of taste and finesse that is a defining characteristic of exceptional designers. They are qualities that have always set designer Karl Lagerfeld apart. Like anyone who is required to be creative on demand, he sometimes falls short, but on Thursday evening, the collection he presented for Fendi offered evidence of why he continues to have such an outsize reputation.

Instead, of the sharp edges and snarling sensibility that too often dominate his work at Fendi, this collection was based on moody forest colors, artful construction and darkly romantic flourishes reminiscent of something that might have had its beginnings on a Tim Burton storyboard. There were fur skirts that looked as though they had been constructed from peacock feathers, a leather jacket with a hemline laser-cut into leaves, sculptural skirts and dresses that reminded one of pine cones, and coats with broad, angular sleeves suggesting a bird's wing at rest.

It was a collection that celebrated creativity with the woman as the centerpiece, not as the afterthought. And where were Lagerfeld's hemlines? He remained neutral in the conversation, with skirts that fell just to the knee.

Marni designer Consuelo Castiglioni also opted out of the debate. She played to her strengths with eccentric shapes, off-kilter proportions and magical prints. She stayed in her comfort zone -- with a few key tweaks such as more streamlined tailoring and a stronger focus on proportions over complicated tucks and gathers.

Castiglioni's philosophy of dressing isn't based on what is revealed and what remains hidden. It's not reliant on the hourglass silhouette. She focuses on color, texture and abstract shapes. Her shoulder seams don't lie precisely on the shoulders. Her skirts don't follow the line of the hips; they merely make room for the curves. Her necklines rarely lie flat; they curl and twist in a chaotic manner. And hemlines never simply fall to any one length. They jut forward. They're pinched upward. They rise and fall in a single garment. Until ultimately, they no longer matter.