I spent about four years thinking a black midaxi skirt was what you wore when you’d given up. Sensible shoes, sensible skirt, sensible life, that sort of energy. My friend Priya actually said “you look like you’re about to hand out hymn sheets” the first time I wore one to her sister’s christening, and honestly, fair. I’d bought the wrong one. Too much fabric, no shape, sat on me like a tea cosy.
The right one is a completely different animal.
It’s got weight to it, proper weight, the kind that swings when you walk rather than just hanging there apologetically. A good black midaxi skirt skims past the knee and stops somewhere mid calf, and that length does something clever, it makes you look taller and more deliberate, like you got dressed on purpose rather than by accident at 7am. Satin ones catch the light in a way that reads dressed up. A stiffer cotton or twill does the opposite, it’s the one you wear to work under a jumper and nobody clocks that you’re basically wearing loungewear underneath.
Styling one is less complicated than people make it.
A fitted top tucked in, because a midaxi skirt with a baggy top just becomes a shape with no edges. Boots underneath in winter, proper stompy ones, not the skirt trying to be delicate. A blazer over the top for anything that needs you to look like you have your life together, even the days you very much do not. I wore mine with an old denim jacket to a leaving do in November, stood outside in the cold for a cigarette break I didn’t even want, and the skirt didn’t crease once. That’s when I actually came round to them.
They’re doing something at weddings when you can’t face another floral dress, they’re doing something at the office when jeans feel wrong but a full dress feels like effort, and they’re doing something on a random Tuesday when you want to feel slightly more like yourself than usual. I was wrong about them for years. I’m not anymore.
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