A question

[Harriet Collingham]

Whilst searching through the vintage sections on e-bay I have noticed that all the skirts of dresses appear to be fairly short. Could anyone tell me why this is?
Many thanks

 

[Shelley Dziedzic]

Often these dresses are altered to be worn as costumes Harriet, and it is a well-documented fact that women were much shorter and smaller in days gone by. I read that today's woman on average is a size 12-14 with a shoe size of 8 1/2 and an average height of 5'5 1/2" compared with the statistics of three generations ago, this is quite a jump. Skirts and dresses were also passed down to other women in the family, younger sisters and nieces, and were often made over. If you remember in Little Women, the sisters actually took apart their dresses, reversed the fabric and then wore out the other side. I do repairs on historic costumes and often see the stitch lines of many alterations. As styles change, often shortenening and tailoring skirts to modernize the garment as well as removing flounces, ruffles and fringe took off a good bit of skirt length. Some of those ebay items are also misrepresented as vintage, but are actually more modern day concoctions with a vintage look.

 

[Harriet Collingham]

Thank you

That answers my question very nicely.