So long to year’s fashion don’t

The last days of summer bring with them the last gasp for summer fashion. It’s the end of shorts and gladiator sandals, at least until next year, even if temperatures still hover around 90 degrees.

Let’s hope it’s also the end of the maxidress.

The long-lost bohemian look - tucked away since the 1970s - reared its billowing head earlier this summer, resurrected by celebs such as Nicole Richie and Angelina Jolie. There were maxidresses by the pool, at the mall, on the streets of Georgetown. The maxi was a must-wear at happy hour, at the beach and a host of other places it shouldn’t have been.

For most women, the maxi dress is a double-whammy fashion don’t: impractical and unflattering. So why were they flying off the rack? You couldn’t wear one to the office, or co-workers might think you came to work in a nightgown. You couldn’t travel gracefully; just try negotiating an airport with the hem of said dress dragging on the ground.

Visit a small-enough public bathroom, and you’d have to gather that filthy hem by hand so it wouldn’t get even filthier falling into the toilet. To be sure, it’s a good bet that at least one poor fashionista got the hem of her maxidress caught in a Metro escalator.

“I am not a proponent of the comeback,” says Natalie Jobity, a Washington-area wardrobe consultant and founder of Elan Image Management.

Ms. Jobity says only a small sliver of women can pull off the look.

“If you are tall and thin, you need something to break up your height,” she says. “In a maxi, you are going to look taller. It is not a great look. It is also not a great look if you are petite. You can look like a little girl. If you are busty, I do not like this look. On a full-figured girl, it is going to make you look like a big square.”

And the one-two punch of strapless and flowing? Don’t get Ms. Jobity started.

“A strapless maxi, oh my gosh, so not a good look on most people,” she says. “Even if you are average height and weight, I am still not convinced.”

Neither are several other fashion watchers. A New York Post columnist recently called the maxi an “urban burqa” and implored Manhattan women, “Burn your maxi dresses. Bury the ashes with Bea Arthur.

“It is said that women dress for other women, but where is it written that women must dress for the Taliban?” the Post writer said.

Culture blogger the Spiteful Critic also is not a fan:

“It’s hard to rock it, though, when the triangles don’t hold in your cleavage, your underwear line shows, [your] curves look bulbous instead of luscious, and you trip over the hem as you go to cry in front of the dressing room mirror. … The 2009-can’t-avoid-it-if-you-tried maxi dress is sheer laziness. Instead of one designer coming up with a variety of different shapes, or several designers each courting their own muse, all mainstream retailers seem to be sticking to a few, basic, extremely limiting options.”

Ms. Jobity says one of the more puzzling things about the return of the maxi is why otherwise fit women would want to cover their bodies shapelessly. With so much fabric floating around, some maxis are more like spaghetti-strap Snuggies on a hot summer’s day.

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