Get out your scissors. Across the nation this summer, the young and the hip are cutting fashion down to size. Teeny, tiny size. The big pieces: tiny skirts (pleated or sheer), tiny shorts (if they cover your Calvins, cut them), tiny T shirts (midriff-baring vests and bra tops are hot alternatives), tiny jewelry (reminiscent of your baby bracelet). To finish it off-. tiny anklets (worn with thick-soled sneakers) and tiny hair (Winona Ryder’s home-chopping is too long). How do you wear it? Think parochial-school uniform, shrunk small enough to guarantee detention. The result is not for the faint of heart -or body. “I know it’s really short, but I don’t bend over,” says Annie’s sister, Penelope, 21, wearing a halter and pleated micromini.
However precarious the style, fashion had no choice but to go small. “This is a reaction to all the oversize clothing, from the hip-hop look to the suburban housewife wearing a big shirt and leggings,” says Carolyn Egan, fashion editor of the Tobe Report, a retailing newsletter. But Mother is also the mother of invention. Remember all those body-baring slip dresses that flooded stores last season? Imagine all those moms scolding their sweet young daughters: “You’re not leaving the house dressed like that!” Enter the T shirt bought in the boys’ department and shrunk till it fit underneath. Faster than you can say “Fruit of the Loom,” women discovered that the pint-size shirts that made slip dresses look modest made skirts and shorts look anything but. (One benefit: small chic is also cheap chic.)
Anyone still wearing shoulder pads probably doesn’t fathom the appeal. Jennifer Shenker does. Heading down Melrose Avenue the other day, Jennifer sported 14 (mostly tiny) earrings and a short transparent dress that did little to hide her black bra and black Calvin briefs. She explained that tiny T shirts and wispy dresses have become her signature (along with the tattoos that snake around her body and the silver post that studs her tongue), because they make her look, well, tinier. “I don’t want to age,” she says. But 22 isn’t exactly old. “Yeah, but I want to be in junior high again.”
This is progress? Thankfully, retailers don’t expect microfashion (aimed at 16-to 30-year-olds) to slip from beach to boardroom. As for anti-feminist significance, Fairleigh Dickinson University psychologist Judith Walters says there is none. “It’s fun and it’s light in a summer in which we’re dealing with wars around the world and a president who’s been charged with inappropriate behavior.” Besides, tiny togs may be long gone by the time you pack away summer’s tiniest hit -the string bikini.
