When fashionistas charge that Washington has no style, tell them that the miniskirt was invented here. Designer Vicky Tiel grew up in Chevy Chase and claims she created the then-scandalous look as a BCC High School student because she couldn’t find anything youthful or sexy at Garfinckel’s.
“First it was above the knee,” Tiel, 67, told us Tuesday, “then mid-thigh, then. . . ” She pulled her skirt way up her lace-covered leg.
She caused a sensation when she took the miniskirt to Paris in the early ’60s — beating London’s Mary Quant, who often took credit for the design — and launched a four-decade career, recounted in her new memoir “It’s All About the Dress.” Which is also, in large part, about sex, and men, and women (Liz Taylor was a client and friend), and how women should dress for men. Her book party, at the Palisades home of Sandi Hoffman, was decorated by mannequins in Tiel’s goddess gowns.
Washington, Tiel declared, is much sexier than everyone thinks. “With Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn and me,” she told us, “this place is hot!”
