When I was at uni, I went through a phase of wearing long draggy baggy things all in multiple layers in greys and blacks, topped off with scruff knee high Converse and a slouchy grey beanie.  This was my daily mooching around the library uniform which got the seal of approval from a fellow Japanese coursemate who comes from a streetstyle culture where making the body look its absolute best is not their main goal.  I may have looked like a dumpy potato but I was a potato with many variations of grey jersey pieces, deconstructed t-shirts, long voluminous skirts with some sort of a bustle, doing a streetier version of elderly, poor, female Charles Dickens characters.  Since then, I now tend to wear sleeker long skirts but this has never fully transferred to wearing long dresses.  People will take up height as an issue but seeing as I’ve never wanted to appear to be taller than I am (which at 5”7-8 is neither tall, nor short....), stunting it with something full length has never bothered me. 

There’s a sort of air of formality attached to wearing a long dress, not least because there’s normally a fair amount of material you’re carrying, making you walk differently and because you have to sometimes actually pick it up and make some sort of a sweeping gesture with the excess fabric.  I own perhaps five long dresses which I think of as a bit special when wearing them for the reasons above and somehow, when your legs are totally concealed underneath a gown like construction (being the bottom half of the dress), there is a serene way of wafting about that I tend to do which for everyday wear can sometimes be impractical.  However, the champion of the long dress as daywear, Roksanda Illincic has inspired me to take it upon me to go for that neither here nor there length of just above the ankles so as to not trip up all over myself.  She is so consistent in pushing that length (the woman herself is often dressed in a long dress...) in juicy satins, a material that I have a fetish for against bare legs that is compelling me to go for a dress of this sort, not for a special occasion but for everyday wear.  Worn with not extravagant heels or ankle boots, instead of looking draggy baggy as I did back in my UCL days, I hope there will be an injection of freshness in the look.

Marios Schwab proposed a more restrictive long look that’s a wee bit longer but not quite floor length either.  Some were horrified that models were hobbling along in these tight bandaged creations but I say hobble away.  There’s something very intriguing about a silhouette that is both comfortable and uncomfortable (jersey/lycra=comfy, shape=not so comfy).  Surprisingly enough, I’m all for taking baby steps in a dress that forces you to take a certain stance when walking.