# How short were women's skirts in 1962 ("X-Men: First Class"-related question) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 13, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339 "2011-06-13T18:01:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/41 "2011-06-14T19:40:19Z")
Also, Johanna isn’t wrong because “top of knee length” is still knee length. Your knees are about 3 inches long, so hemlines can fall right at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom of the knee, and all are considered “knee length”. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/42 "2011-06-14T20:02:45Z")
> [@gallows\_fodder](#): > > Also, Johanna isn’t wrong because “top of knee length” is still knee length. Your knees are about 3 inches long, so hemlines can fall right at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom of the knee, and all are considered “knee length”. If that’s the official definition of “knee length” then I stand corrected. I assumed that any hemline that exposed the whole knee would be considered “above the knee”. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/43 "2011-06-14T20:08:05Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > [Not so fast.](http://vintagepatterns.wikia.com/wiki/Vogue_1962) By no means minis, but clearly a little knee was acceptable in 1962. If you missed the sarcasm of my previous reply, using the First Lady as an example of current fashion for the under 30 crowd is pretty silly. Regardless, in the movie she is wearing a by-God miniskirt - these dresses are way too long. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/44 "2011-06-14T20:26:04Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Regardless, in the movie she is wearing a by-God miniskirt - these dresses are way too long. Which characters are we talking about? I don’t think you can really count the stripper and the super-villainess (in their “work” uniforms). I think that leaves (human form) Mystique and Agent MacTaggart. Mystique might have been going for the school girl look, but MacTaggart might have had a hard time passing muster with Alan Dulles. BTW, I never said that the clothes worn in the movie are accurate for the era. My link was intended to refute that fashions were knee-length or lower. My bad if a fully exposed knee is still considered knee legth. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/45 "2011-06-14T20:33:46Z")
> [@Sycorax](#): > > Okay, I confess – I was in my early twenties in 1962, and the answer is: no, mini-skirts were not in vogue at that time. What was in vogue? Hippie wear - long skirts; peasant blouses, lots of beaded jewelry; long, disheveled hair for girls and boys, bell bottom jeans (for girls and boys), and weed. Depends on where you live, maybe? I graduated in 1963. Skirts were at the knee (or not far from it either way) and long hair (on girls or boys) hadn’t made it to Iowa. If a girl had long hair, it was styled, not straight. I did see a peasant blouse once but it was part of a gypsy costume at a Halloween party. But it always took years for fashion to make it to the middle of the country. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/46 "2011-06-14T20:49:02Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Which characters are we talking about? I don’t think you can really count the stripper and the super-villainess (in their “work” uniforms). I think that leaves (human form) Mystique and Agent MacTaggart. Mystique might have been going for the school girl look, but MacTaggart might have had a hard time passing muster with Alan Dulles. > > BTW, I never said that the clothes worn in the movie are accurate for the era. My link was intended to refute that fashions were knee-length or lower. My bad if a fully exposed knee is still considered knee legth. I noticed the mini on McTaggart (thanks for the name). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/47 "2011-06-14T21:02:42Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > When my sister was in high school (class of 64) the test for if a girl’s skirt was too short was to have the girl get down on her knees. The hem had to touch the ground or there was a problem. And you had me so going until the second sentence deflated the thought… The test for the all girls Catholic school that was our sister school in 1970 was that the skirts could not be above your fingertips when you held your arms down straight. But that was 1970. Mores changed pretty quickly, though! ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/48 "2011-06-14T22:39:14Z")
Originally Posted by Susanann You are absolutely correct. In 1962 skirts were a good few/several inches below the knee or at the calf.Kneelength skirts and shorter came after 1965. By the very early 1970s micromini skirts were common on the young. > [@Johanna](#): > > That isn’t how it was. I was around at the time. You are off by several years. 1965 was the year hemlines started to rise above the knee. It was hugely scandalous at first. It was 1965 in London on Carnaby Street but by '67 it had caught on across America…I got argued with, for reasons that aren’t clear to me, but I’m right and I have proven it. Nobody but nobody (except for preschoolers/kindergartners) wore hemlines above the knee in 1962. Huh??? First, you said what I said is not how it was… and then… you admit how correct I am and say the very same thing that I said. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/49 "2011-06-14T22:39:18Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > And you had me so going until the second sentence deflated the thought… eew. > [@](#): > > The test for the all girls Catholic school that was our sister school in 1970 was that the skirts could not be above your fingertips when you held your arms down straight. But that was 1970. Mores changed pretty quickly, though! They did. [This](http://images.ulib.csuohio.edu/cgi-bin/getimage.exe?CISOROOT=/press&CISOPTR=4386&DMSCALE=100.00000&DMWIDTH=600&DMHEIGHT=600&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&REC=7&DMTHUMB=0&DMROTATE=0) was the Christian girls’ high school I took classes at, pic dated 1972, the year before I got there. That’s a clergyman they’re palling around with. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/50 "2011-06-14T22:41:49Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > As Gary T said, absolutely not. > > The only time the average kid in America saw this was in the pages of Life magazine when they took pictures of them weirdo San Francisco hippies. > > The Summer of Love styles moved slowly across America. In 1967 we boys started to grow out hair a bit longer, maybe to the length of those early Beatles pictures. Long shaggy hair probably didn’t become normal until after Woodstock. (And remember that at least half the country hated hippies and would beat up boys with long hair. I went to college with guys who still had crew cuts.) > > My high school did not allow jeans to be worn until 1968. Girls could not wear pants of any kind. This was universal in the area, not something from a strict or conservative school. Bell bottoms didn’t become ordinary wear until the early 1970s. College students in 1968 looked more like early 60s Beach Boys than like hippies. You know what was big? [Madras shirts.](http://coolmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/gitman-vintage-madras-check-shirt.jpg) Hippie schmippie. > > The changeover seems instantaneous in retrospect and in fact it happened over the course of my college career, which is lightning speed for cultural change. But as I’ve said in many similar threads, in the real world of the average American the vast majority of the things people now remember as “sixties” didn’t take place until the early 1970s. You are correct. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/51 "2011-06-15T00:16:48Z")
Wait, this movie was set in the 1960s? I mean, one guy was in a turtleneck. but that’s about all the retro I remember. ---
**Author:** ![Sycorax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@Sycorax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sycorax)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/52 "2011-06-15T02:29:19Z")
Edwardina and Gary T: I believe you are correct. As I think back on it, in 1962, I was working my first job and I recall wearing below-knee skirts and dresses and pointed toe, 3" heels. (My feet are now suffering from it.) I graduated high school in 1960, and the fashions at that time (at least in the D.C. Maryland suburbs) were below-the -knee skirts with bobby socks and penny loafers. I recall my “wilder” days in the early '70’s when I wore bell bottoms and mini-skirts and hung out in dance clubs reeking of weed (mainly the Varsity Grill, College Park, Maryland). ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/53 "2011-06-15T11:27:00Z")
The very bottom of [this page](http://www.sixtiescity.com/Fash2/Fashion2.htm) has pages from the UK Sears clothing catalogue for several years, and you can see the rising hemlines as the 60s progress. The rest of the site has some great 1960s London fashion as well, but even there (_the_ hotbed of fashion at the time) the minis don’t appear until 1964/5 or so… ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/54 "2011-06-15T12:52:18Z")
> [@gatorslap](#): > > Doesn’t the fact that they had to have this ‘test’ imply that there were, in fact, shorter skirts, and they weren’t that uncommon? We rolled our skirts when we left the house to show the knee, but not really above the knee. No pants of any kind, even in the Chicago winter. We did have these slit skirts with shorts underneath (hard to describe) that were popular for a short time. I graduated in 1968, but by the time my sister went 5 years later she was wearing cut offs and those halter tops girls used to make with bandannas. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339/55 "2011-06-15T22:26:08Z")
> [@Meurglys](#): > > The very bottom of [this page](http://www.sixtiescity.com/Fash2/Fashion2.htm) has pages from the UK Sears clothing catalogue for several years, and you can see the rising hemlines as the 60s progress. > The rest of the site has some great 1960s London fashion as well, but even there (_the_ hotbed of fashion at the time) the minis don’t appear until 1964/5 or so… The economics graph I linked to on page 1 shows a strong rising trend in hemline height over that span of years. 1962—18" 1964—20" 1967—25" The pics you & I linked to track with the data in the chart. 1962—bottom of knee 1964—mid-knee 1966—top of knee 1968—mid-thigh [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-short-were-womens-skirts-in-1962-x-men-first-class-related-question/585339.md?page=2)