Skirt Length Optional

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31598, 8 February 1968, Page 2

Skirt Length Optional

Skirt lengths do not matter any more. Fashion today is dictated by mood, according to Mrs Susan Robinson, fashion editor of the British edition of “Vogue.”

Mrs Robinson arrived in Christchurch yesterday with four members of the “Vogue” team, including the noted British photographer, David Bailey, his assistant and the model, Susan Murray. They will spend 10 days in New Zealand photographing holiday clothes for the May issue of the magazine. Mini-skirts and maxi-skirts will be worn side by side in the street, neither taking precedence as “the" fashionable length, Mrs Robinson predicted.

“I hope the day will never come again when the crucial issue of fashion will revolve round skirt lengths,” she said.

When the maxi comes to town (it has already hit London) it will be a winter fashion as it is not practical for the summer. It will appeal more to the young because older people will And they

look much younger in shorter skirts, said Mrs Robinson. Fashion today is the focal point of a social revolution. The “holy holy” atmosphere which surrounded fashion ten years ago is gone. “This makes fashion a lot more fun for everyone, including the man in the street,” said Mrs Robinson who has spent all of her working life on the staff of “Vogue,” including four years on the American edition. “Ten years ago the fashion in England was a kind of a uniform, which was not so bad for those who bothered but the rest just were not interested or could not afford it.

“Girls today can steal the scene without spending a lot of money. Everybody can afford to be fashionable in their own way, and that is the nicest thing about it,” she said. With the assurance that her dress is approved the average working girl has a great deal more poise than her counterpart a decade ago. She does not have to worry about the right garment for this or that particular occas ion. Mrs Robinson travels wid-

ely in the course of her work —“but never as far as this," she said. “We work so far ahead on a fashion magazine, we usually have to travel to find good weather. We did not want to photograph our holiday clothes in England at the moment.” New Zealand was chosen because of its sunshine, the lushness and the greenery of the islands, and because the editor in chief had said “no more stone ruins or forsaken beaches,” said Mrs Robinson. “We also have a New Zealand girl on our staff who has been trying to persuade us to take some photographs in New Zealand for a long time.” Sixteen outfits, all modelled by Susan Murray, will be photographed for the lead feature in the normal edition of the magazine in May. It will cover 12 pages, eight of them in colour, and some of the photographs will also be used for the French edition.

The photograph shows Mrs Robinson and Miss Murray.