Hemline

Clothing & Fashion Industry Definitions

fabric & Textile Industry Definitions

Fashion Definitions

The Style Line That Moves

Every garment has three great style lines: the neckline at the top, the waistline at the middle and the hemline at the bottom. Of the three, the hemline moves the most. Necklines and waistlines shift by inches across a decade; hemlines have swung from the floor to the mid-thigh and back within a few seasons, which is why the hemline is described as perhaps the most variable style line in fashion. Because it sits at the largest uninterrupted area of a garment, a change in hemline changes the whole proportion of an outfit — the balance between cloth and leg, between formality and ease — more visibly than almost any other single alteration a designer can make.

The named heights form a ladder that the trade uses precisely. Floor-length and ankle hemlines belong to formal and traditional dress. Midcalf hemlines, falling between knee and ankle, carry a practical, modest character. Below-knee and above-knee hemlines mark the boundary that fashion crossed in the 1920s and has argued about ever since. Mid-thigh and hip-high hemlines belong to the shortest skirt styles. Shape adds a second vocabulary on top of height: a handkerchief hemline falls in points, a diagonal hemline slants from one side to the other, and high-low hemlines combine two heights in one garment. A tailor, a pattern maker and a retailer can all specify a garment exactly with those two coordinates — height and shape.

A Short History of a Rising Line

In the history of Western fashion, the ordinary public clothes of upper- and middle-class women varied only between floor-length and slightly above ankle-length for many centuries before World War I. Shorter lengths existed, but they were confined: skirts of lower-calf or mid-calf length were associated with the practical working garments of working-class or pioneer women, and even shorter lengths appeared only in specialized contexts such as sea-bathing costumes or the outfits worn by ballerinas on stage. The hemline was, in effect, a class and respectability marker that barely moved.

The break came in the mid-1910s, when hemlines began to rise significantly, and they rose all the way from floor-length to near knee-length in only about fifteen years. From World War I to roughly 1970, the fashionable length at any moment was a strong social signal, and a woman wearing skirts far from the current length risked being considered almost hopelessly unstylish. Since the 1970s, women's options have widened, and there is no longer really only one single fashionable skirt-length at a time: floor-length, midi, knee and mini hemlines now coexist in the same season, chosen by garment, occasion and personal style rather than by a single ruling fashion. The hemline remains the most variable style line — it has simply become a matter of choice instead of decree.