Ruth Tries Trends: The Bias Cut Skirt

There are some fashion trends that my I just can't deal with. Anything cropped. Anything too body-con but made in cheap material. Anything that involves long, tube-like skirts that sit tightly around the middle. Culottes (age me by eighty years), stilettos (always try to kill me), cold-shoulder tops (make me keenly feel the mutton/lamb scenario), high-necked blouses (make me look like a Victorian matron).

The latest trend to not suit me is the bias-cut skirt. The way it's cut (bias, clue is in the name) means that it just clings in all of the wrong places. Namely my stomach. It also clings to my buttocks, but only the top part of them, making my arse look like a constantly-shimmying, attention-grabbing shelf.

Now if I sit down in the skirt and position my legs in a certain way so that 80% of my body is concealed (and, weirdly, as though all of my limbs have been taken off and reattached the wrong way around, see above), it looks great. Really chic and feminine. The problem comes when I have to do anything other than sit in a contrived position - if I have to walk, for example, or stand up without throwing my shoulders forward. The bias cut skirt, when worn in any of these (fairly pedestrian, non-outré) scenarios, makes me look like a snake that's eaten an egg.

It's a skirt for the straight-up-straight-downs. It doesn't seem to like curves. Or perhaps it just doesn't like my curves. Wearing the bias cut skirt made me feel like I'd crafted a garment from some repurposed curtains, except I'd sewn all the seams the wrong way by mistake. And call me paranoid, but it just felt as though every lump and bump was on show. Which is never convenient. I would have been useless at wearing a wire, for example; becoming an informant in a crucial Scotland Yard investigation would have been out of the question. Ditto one of those security bum bags (fanny packs): should I have wanted to conceal my cash on a school trip to Rome, I would have looked absurd.

So the bias cut skirt trend, which I've seen in every magazine and newspaper for months, is not for me. I need structure and I need shape, otherwise I need things to drape in clever ways. Good things that have come from this trial, however, are: the discovery of Nike Air Force 1s, which made me feel incredibly hip (thanks Rach!) and the confirmation that pale grey always looks beautiful with pink. It's so spring-like! So fresh!

Topshop have loads of different bias-cut midi skirts here* - my particular dreamboat skirt doesn't seem to be in stock anymore, but they have lots of jewel-toned versions online and the lace trim style is pretty. Not on me, obviously, but on others.

My t-shirt is a really old one from Milly and I bought the Air Force 1s from Schuh here* - to be fully transparent, I loved the trainers but they cut in too high for my Stan-Smith-moulded feet and so I didn't keep them.

Winning at this season's fashion game, so far: please hold for more things that don't suit me. And tell me your trend nightmares and surprise successes: anyone managed to pull off the cropped look yet? Or wear a bodysuit without wanting to punch a wall with sheer irritation? Maybe that'll be my next trend test...