How Short Is Too Short for a Skirt?

I love short skirts, but as a fit, professional woman, how short can I go? I am comfortable with two, maybe three, inches above the knee, but I fear dressing “too young” as the years go by. How will I know when I have gone over the line? — Ann, Portsmouth, N.H.

Even before Ally McBeal spawned a cottage industry of should-you-or-shouldn’t-you chatter by wearing exceedingly short skirts to her law firm in the 1990s sitcom, and before Mary Quant rocked the fashion world with the miniskirt in the 1960s, Gussie Moran caused a ruckus in the tennis world in 1949 by chopping the knee-length playing skirt to upper thigh, the better to move around the court. Tennis fans quailed, Wimbledon authorities freaked, and Ms. Moran, nicknamed “Gorgeous Gussie,” was charged with bringing “vulgarity and sin into tennis.”

The point being: Short skirts in the workplace have always been controversial, no matter what the office or the age of the person wearing them. It started with the ankle back in the Victorian era and has continued incessantly. For some people, any sight of leg is a problem. This is simply another dimension of the body problem, in which exposure of the female physique is seen as warning sign and temptation and has its roots in age-old prejudices and fears.

It is not, however, illegal. “In general, anything up to the private parts can be legally exposed in public,” said Susan Scafidi of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University. Which means you can officially wear your skirts as short as you want almost anywhere — as long as you are willing to deal with the judgments of those around you. And the fact (see Ally McBeal) that conversations may center as much around what you wear as what you do.

Which can work for or against you.

On the one hand, it is annoying to have your clothes be the focus of attention rather than your substance. This is especially so given the way fashion has been used as a tool to dismiss women as decorative and not serious contenders for top jobs. (The skirt scandal helped mess up Gussie Moran’s career.)

On the other hand, it’s annoying to have to deny your gender to prove yourself. I considered it a breakthrough when Michelle Obama wore floral dresses as first lady instead of staid skirt suits, as if to confront the world with the fact that one could be a change agent and a woman at the same time.

A good friend who started her career as a government lawyer said she remembered a colleague from her early days in Washington who was known in the office for wearing “too-short skirts and leather.”