My wife needs advice...please.

[Tomak]

My wife is making a skirt from her family's tartan. She prefers a shorter length than hostess length, but worries that a shorter length would not be proper. She would like to know if any other length would be appropriate for daytime events?

[Father Bill]

http://www.lindaclifford.com/LadiesSkirts.html Have a look - stock photos; a lot of our sponsors will have the same products.

[CDNSushi]

What is "proper" is in the eye of the beholder. Some like long skirts and some like miniskirts. That is up to your wife, and her alone. How anyone else perceives it is their own problem. The only guideline (in my mind) would be: what is the intended use? Who is the intended audience? Adjust as necessary.

[Elizabeth]

Not knowing your wife's age or where she intends to wear the skirt it is hard to say. Me being in my mid fifties prefer a few inches above my knees, which I feel is short enough to be nice looking on someone my age but not what I consider "doughty or frumpy". Plus that length I feel decently covered and not having to worry about my every move. I feel this length is fine for out and about and to festivals. If I was going to have a skirt for more "formal events" I would tend to go a little longer to the top of the knee or sightly below the knee cap. But as I said that is my age and stage and what I am comfortable with.

[Tomak]

Thank you all for your input. She found some VERY inexpensive plaid material she is going to use for a practice run before she takes on the tartan.

[The Wizard of BC]

My personal advice would be to ask the exact same question but remove four little words from your original question.

If you had reworded you question like this, would the answer be easier, or would the answer be more self evident?

"My wife is making a skirt. She prefers a shorter length than hostess length, but worries that a shorter length would not be proper. She would like to know if any other length would be appropriate for daytime events?"

I find that a lot of people seem to feel that because the fabric is Tartan that there is some special requirement envolved.
Actually you would look at Tartan fabric just as you would any other skirt fabric. Some skirt fabrics lend themselves to one style of skirt over another due to how well they drape. Others, like any plaid, lend themselves to pleats.

Then you take into account the event and the intended use. A skirt made for wear to the office or your job could be different than one made to wear during an evening out dancing or one made to wear going to the grocery store.

[Pleater]

Once it was acceptable for women to show their ankles most pleated skirts were cut 27 inches in length as that is half the fabric width, so it makes the most of the material you have. The waistband was made from a strip cut off one end of the fabric - you could tell as it was not quite the same size sett as the garment, one cut across the warp and the other across the weft.

There really are no kilt police....

Anne the Pleater :ootd: