The problem with skirts
I realised last night that I have not worn a skirt for nearly eight years 
The last time my legs had the misfortune to see daylight was probably the end of June 2008, when I sat my last GCSE examination and was finally released from the tyranny of wearing school uniform. In Sixth Form and obviously at university, I was able to wear my own clothes, and since I’ve started work I have been determinedly living in a trouser suit.
I don’t see the point of skirts. Really, I don’t. 
They’re not a very useful piece of clothing; unless you wear tights so thick as to be leggings, your poor legs are going to be exceedingly cold at this time of year as soon as you step out of the house. Plus tights are such a hassle in themselves. You have to be more awake than I generally am in the mornings to squeeze yourself into them successfully, and the chances of snagging them on something during the day and ending up with a massive ladder down your shin are either astronomical or I am exceptionally clumsy 
Some people, it is true, can look nice in skirts, and long skirts are certainly better than short ones, but in general I feel they are designed for people whose legs are a different shape to mine. It’s hard to pin down exactly what is wrong with my legs, but they are most definitely The Wrong Shape, and as such are far better when hidden as much as possible. After I left school I never thought I would have to wear a skirt again, unless I had the misfortune to get married 
My school skirt was a terrible four-gore, navy affair. Unlike some schools, whose Muslim element meant they had to allow their female students to wear trousers, my school by virtue of its religious discrimination was able to require skirts to be worn by everyone. In keeping with their general level of strictness, they even specified the particular skirt we had to wear, and no brand or style would do. Even the length was specified! Other schools, I suspect, spent their PSHE lessons learning useful things about drugs and citizenship. We spent ours kneeling in rows in the chapel whilst a nun inspected our uniform. The skirt had to be of a length such that the hem would touch the floor when you knelt down. And the heels on your shoes could not be more than 2 inches, which point was regularly verified with a ruler.
Other than that, the skirts I have owned have been severely limited. For reasons which I cannot recall, I once had a dreadful tartan skirt which I used to wear with grey tights and a velour cardigan when I was about thirteen It was perculiar in that it required holding together with two safety pins, so there was always the chance it might disintegrate at an inopportune moment. I bought a little black skirt when I was going to do my work experience in year ten and wore it for two weeks. I checked last night and it is actually still in my wardrobe but I appear to have been a size fourteen when I purchased it and so it’s no longer wearable. Other than that, I have been grateful not to have to go near a skirt for the last eight years 
The reason, however, that I am now contemplating skirts, is that one of my boyfriend’s friends is getting married next week and after consultation with various parties, it appears that the most appropriate dress code for the occasion probably does not include trousers. To me this seems greatly sexist and unfair I had a horrible panic last night when I thought I was going to have to purchase not only a skirt, but a pair of shoes to go with it, and was easily seeing this expenditure running to a hundred unnecessary pounds :Cry:
Luckily, when I got home last night, I remembered that I do actually own a dress. I bought this dress some time last summer, when I was supposed to be attending another wedding I ultimately didn’t make, and for the past six months or so it has been lying rolled up in a ball at the bottom of a rucksack in my bedroom. As a consequence, it is a little creased but it’s a weird sort of material which is actually supposed to be creased in some places so I am hopeful that if I spend a while shaking it it will recover sufficiently to be presentable.
It’s not a bad dress actually, as dresses go, although it’s a bit difficult to describe except for to say that it is vaguely blue and it almost fits. Almost fitting is, I feel, the best that can be expected bearing in mind that I bought it from TKMaxx for £15 in a half hour lunch break, and guessed the size without trying it on. It takes a bit of careful wriggling to get it over my head with both hands in the appropriate holes, but now that I’ve practised it several times I’m getting quite proficient at it. It’s actually an awful lot easier now that I’ve realised that there is a zip down the left hand side of the bodice, which when undone creates extra room. The first time I ever tried it on I may not have noticed this zip, with the result that when trying to extricate myself from the dress I may have put a hole in it It’s only every such a little hole though, and you wouldn’t know it was there if I didn’t point it out.
The zip is actually the most difficult thing about the whole proceeding. It’s weird, because the dress is plenty big enough on the waist and hips, and is quite roomy on the bust seeing as I don’t have one, but for some reason there’s a part of my shoulder blade which seems to be larger than the designers of the dress decreed that it ought to be. It’s nothing to do with the weight which people keep telling me I’ve recently put on (shock, horror; I’m now officially 8 stone 8!), it really is a problem with my bones I *can* get the zip completely done up after a couple of attempts and it’s not at all uncomfortable, but I am slightly worried that there is the potential for something to burst.
Luckily, due to the fact that this is April and the dress was intended for wearing in August, I can get away with wearing a cardigan over it. I have inspected my motley collection of cardigans and found one which is an inoffensive shade of blue. It is in no way a shade of blue which matches any other shade of blue reflected in the dress, but it is a shade of blue which me and my limited understanding of colour don’t think clashes.
The best thing is, I even have a pair of blue shoes to go with it. Those were also bought from TKMaxx last summer, and look terribly cheap but are a light turqoisey sort of colour which again, doesn’t clash with the dress. I haven’t actually ever worn them so they probably aren’t very comfortable but they are, however, mercifully flat, which I feel may be their saving grace
So phew, I think I have an outfit sorted and no longer have to worry either about possibly large expenditures or making my boyfriend embarrassed that he’s the only person whose girlfriend doesn’t turn up suitably attired I still think though that skirts, in general, should be made statutory everyday wear for men, which I have a premonition would lead to a wonderous abolition of them PDQ