The miniskirt: that subversive garment with 60 years of life... and controversy

• The French style actually comes from Spain

• 36, 38... Is it possible to unify the clothing sizes?

It is a

design -which of course quickly sold out- with a shirt collar, white background and pink print, cinched at the waist with a rope belt and a span above her knees.

The model has been on the verge of becoming a matter of state.

on the success or failure of the election of Doña Letizia, in conversations between friends, in Twitter threads and even in summer television gatherings.

The controversial birth

And it is that Manolo Escobar already sang it: «I don't like that you wear the miniskirt to the bulls.

People look up because they want to see your face and they want to see your knees."

A garment that emerged in Bazaar, the legendary London store of the designer

-others attribute its origin to the French creator Andrè Courrèges- in the 60s causing a stir.

The 15 centimeters more that the young women who dared with the miniskirt in the prodigious decade showed were the object of all kinds of reproaches.

Not even Coco Chanel, the innovative designer who made history by turning women's wardrobes upside down, admitted it, calling it

considering that the knees were by no means the most beautiful part of the female body.

Women and men were scandalized by the invasion of the city streets by this garment, which also reached puritanical Spain at that time.

Mrs. Sedeña, president of the National Association of Housewives at the time, wrote: "As an honorable Spaniard, I put decency and modesty before following that abstract, unbalanced and coarse monstrosity of the skirt of dancers or skaters.

recent reviews

One more pearl in the controversial history of the miniskirt, which today, in the 21st century, continues to provoke comments and even insults.

In 2009, a student at the Bandeirante University (São Paulo, Brazil) was followed by hundreds of classmates shouting "whore" and "prostitute".

His crime of her?

Wear a very short dress.

Three years later, in 2012, the Mexican deputy Crystal Tovar was a trending topic on Twitter when a photo of her circulated through the networks with the following phrase: "The deputy with the shortest miniskirt."

Queen Letizia's miniskirt

And now Queen Letizia has been the subject of all kinds of comments for her miniskirt dress.

"Stop competing with your daughters", "The mother wanting to look like her daughters in age", "Letizia has to dress according to her age",

And that she has advisers", "She must be located , it is the time for daughters, she should not dress like girls" and "The queen out of place" are some of the countless messages that have been read on the networks.

Carmen Lomana wrote on Twitter: "Did she want to prove something? Make Doña Sofía feel young and cool?

. "

The former PP politician Esperanza Aguirre, however, came out in defense of the Queen: "I am outraged that they mess with her."

A controversy that crossed borders, with the British newspaper 'Daily Express' at the head, which published an article entitled: "She's too old for this! Queen Letizia's look divides fans with a short Zara dress."

A matter of age?

In most of these comments the age factor enters, the one for which it is assumed that

Queen Letizia turns 50 on September 15.

So shouldn't she wear a miniskirt for that?

Model Twiggy in 1967 in a hippy-inspired miniskirt outfit.Getty

Marina Fernández, Director of Communication and International Relations of the International School of Protocol,

clarifies that a short suit is understood to be that length that is at the height of the knee, two fingers above it or two fingers below, and ensures that this is the length used by women who want to send a traditional or even professional message through their image.

Other royals with miniskirt

In any case, the occasion was not a public act, but a private dinner with her daughters and her mother-in-law, Queen Sofía, although she did know that she was going to be profusely photographed.

Fernández explains that it is unusual to see royal women with a miniskirt like Queen Letizia's, but he remembers many looks of

with this garment, or

It is true that none of them was a reigning monarch at the time of using it, so, according to Marina Fernández,

The protocol expert refers to an image of Queen Elizabeth II, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of Cambridge in the same act, each with a different skirt length: "Each one interprets the length of the skirt according to their age, their figure and what he wants to convey".

Queen Elizabeth II, Camilla Parker-Bowles and Kate Middleton.Getty

A symbol of the revolution

But apart from whether the miniskirt has an age to be worn, why does it continue to cause such a stir?

professor of Fashion History at ISEM, assures that this garment meant "a revolution in fashion, something groundbreaking that took a step further in what was established, and also a progress towards the leading role of young people".

When she was born it was the time of May 68, of youth rebellion, and she became a symbol of those years, but now, according to sociologist

"the miniskirt carries a sexualized symbology, which makes it unseemly in certain contexts. For example, an older lady is not supposed to be sexual anymore."

"Behind this", adds the sociologist, "in the end there is a

because it is estimated that not all female bodies can wear a miniskirt, only those that are normative and close to the canon of beauty, and in appropriate contexts".

The message

The also sociologist

qualifies the miniskirt as "a subversive garment, which communicates something and is loaded with a message of power", referring to its origins, when it was born, as we have said, as a symbol of sexual liberation in those years. .

A message that continues today, because, according to the specialist, "we have not advanced as much as we think.

Age, function that is fulfilled in society, comply with a certain canon of beauty..., are factors that are part of a collective imaginary that, even today, in the XXI century, leads to tolerate or not that a woman wears a miniskirt .

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more

• Queen Letizia