When girls are just starting out on their transition journey the question always arises of what type of skirt should they buy first. To me, a good choice for a first-ever skirt is the midi skirt.
What is a midi skirt? A midi skirt is a skirt where the hemline is at mid-calf though in practice the hemline can be anywhere between the ankle and knee. The midi skirt is skirt length that tends to be the most flattering across every body shape and size, which is perfect during a time when your body shape is changing.
Ideal Skirt Length
It must be said that midi skirts do have a tendency to make your legs look a bit shorter so, what I find is that a midi skirt with the skirt length of the hemline is just below the knee tends to be more flattering than one that falls midcalf.
Because the mid-calf is the widest part of your calf, the traditional midi skirt at mid-calf this makes your legs look extra short.
What looks best is where your midi skirt falls just below knee length. That way the area of leg visible below the hemline first widens to mid-calf before tapering down to the ankle. This creates the illusion of longer legs.
If your midi skirt is twin layered then have the inner layer falling at just below the knee and the wispier more see-through outer layer that falls lower down the leg.
Best Style Of Midi Skirt.
For me, the best style of midi skirt is a volume creating circle skirt with a cinched waist belted cinch at the waist. This helps to create volume around my hips.
The Basic Rule Of Styling Top And Bottom Of Outfits
What you want to do in order to avoid looking frumpy it’s either have a volume-creating skirt together with a fitted top that is cropped or tucked top or a volume-creating top together with a pencil skirt, still tucked at the waist.
The reason for this is that if you’ve got volume on the top and volume of the bottom it tends to make you look frumpy. Conversely, a tight top matched together with a tight bottom tends to make you look, let’s just say, less than elegant and classy.
This brings us back to the basic rule of styling an outfit in an elegant manner. Combine a fitted top with having more volume on the bottom or volume up to with a fitted bottom part of the outfit. Do this one thing with each outfit that you style and you will be well on your way to having a much more elegant silhouette every time.
Long Fitted Tops Ruin The Illusion Of Wider Hips
Picture in your mind what would happen if you have a tight fitted top that is long enough to extend down over your butt. If you wear that top over the waistband of your skirt instead of tucking it in you will squish down the part of your skirt that you want to flare out. You will have a skirt that flares out at mid-thigh, leaving you looking completely out of proportion.
So, if your top is longer make sure that you have it tucked into the waistband of your skirt in order that the volume the circle-skirt creates can help your lips look as wide as possible.
Choose Shoes That Help To Elongate Your Legs
Remember what I said earlier about how a midi skirt can have the tendency to make your legs look shorter. Because of that, when you’re wearing a miniskirt do not choose shoes that have ankle straps because by having an ankle strap it creates a break between the foot and the rest of your calf so that will in effect make your legs look even shorter.
Instead, opt for shoes without any ankle strap as the exposed top of your foot will help to create the look of having long legs.
The same goes for shoes that have pointy toes. Pointy-toed shoes make your feet look longer, which will in turn make your legs look longer.
Most of the time sneakers will make your legs look shorter especially if you wearing them together with a midi skirt. If you choose to wear flats, again no ankle straps and open-top will help to create the illusion of a longer leg.
Styling A Midi Skirt With Boots
When it comes to wearing boots with your midi skirt a good choice is having a long boot where the full length of the boot extends up below the hemline of your midi skirt.
The reason for that is it will create a solid color-block of the boot and that’ll help create the illusion of a longer leg together with your midi skirt.
Ankle boots will tend to make your legs look shorter. However, if you wear a pair of ankle boots, for instance in black, then pair those with a dark black pair of pantyhose. That will help to fuse the color blocks of your boots and pantyhose together and still help to create the look of having a longer leg together with your midi skirt.
Styling Your Midi Skirt With A Jacket
If you’re wearing a short jacket make sure that your a short jacket with a fitted-waist and that the waistline of your jacket is not below the waistline of your skirt to help you midi skirt maintain its full volume look.
If you opt for a long jacket, make sure that your jacket’s hemline extends below the hemline of your midi skirt. If it doesn’t the jacket will again create the image of a relative narrowness over your hips and the flare-out of the skirt just below the hemline of the jacket will look anything but elegant.
Remember that if you wear a heavy winter coat that has a bodycon fit over a large volume midi skirt, it can feel really bulky with all that extra fabric wrapped around your legs. In this instance, a midi length pencil skirt will feel more comfortable.
Double Layer Skirts
If you’re wearing a double layer skirt, make sure the inner layer falls just above the knee which is the more opaque material, and that the outer layer which is usually a more translucent wispy a type of material falls much lower on the leg – possibly down to just above the ankle.
The combination of those two layers together will help to create the illusion of a longer leg and looks very elegant.
Let me know in the comments down below how elegant and feminine you feel sitting, standing, and moving around in your midi skirt.