ANN’S FASHION FORTUNES By Ann Rosenquist Fee
Sneakers/skirts demystified DEAR ANN: I read something about sneakers and skirts as a trend this summer, but what are the details? What makes this new? I have sneakers and I have skirts but I don’t want to do this wrong. DEAR READER: As with all trends, confidence is key, so
whatever you put together, you’ve got to wear it like you mean it. Fortunately, sneakers generally s u p p o r t g o o d p o s t u re , s o a shoulders back/feet-firmly-planted stance should come automatically as a foundation for your look. As for what makes this current version of sneakers-and-dresses
It doesn’t really matter what kind of skirt you’re wearing, as long as it looks as if it was originally intended to be paired with not-sneakers. 76 • JULY 2022 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
“current,” my personal take is that the more you look like an office worker who just parked in the ramp and now you’re hustling across crosswalks to make it into the building by your 9 a.m. biweekly ice breaker/team-building session, the better. It doesn’t really matter what kind or cut of skirt you’re wearing, as long as it looks as if it was originally intended to be paired with not-sneakers. That, after all, was what made the 1990s commuter lady look so distinctive. Whether she was wearing an Ann Taylor Loft suit or a baggy drop-waist sack dress with a super-tiny print pattern, the sneakers did nothing complementary, they were just functional to get us from the parking ramp to our desks where we’d slip off our tennies and our terry cloth socks, and then slide our panty-hosed feet into the low-heeled pumps or chunky Mary Janes that lived under our desks for daily office wear. (Note: As I write this, I’m listening to Minnesota Public Radio’s classical station on an actual radio and not a smart device, so it’s a legit coincidence and not some mind-reading algorithm that the music that just now began as I was typing about Loft suits and sack dresses was Libby Larsen’s “Water Music.” Larsen is co-founder of the Minnesota Composer’s Forum (now the American Composer’s Forum), and she was a big dang deal to me back in the 1990s when I worked in the development office of the Minnesota Orchestra and bore witness on a daily basis to women wearing that whole suitsand-sneakers thing as they hustled from parking ramps or bus stops to their offices on Nicollet Mall. I swear there was something about “Water Music” I had to proofread back in the day, like maybe Larsen gave a talk at some donor appreciation
