From bias-cut slips to impeccably tailored pencil skirts, Harriet Cowie explores why this season's defining silhouette isn't one length – it's the freedom to wear them all.

I was in Tahuna, Queenstown, with my whānau over the recent school holidays, and on one particularly dreary day, we ducked into the Arrowtown Museum. If you haven’t been, it’s worth a visit: equal parts informative and kitsch, with much of it dedicated to the region’s gold rush history. One part that caught my eye was the old photographs of the women who lived in the isolated gold-mining settlement at Skippers Canyon. It was a notoriously remote place tucked in the middle of the mountains, reached by a steep and perilous road, yet here they were, dressed as though they lived in central London. Hair immaculate, blouses buttoned, waists cinched, skirts full. My first thought was: what a fucking hassle. My second: we really don’t wear skirts any more.For most of history, skirts were simply what women wore. They predate trousers by millennia, with hemlines rising and falling alongside politics, practicality and changing ideas of femininity. It wasn't until the twentieth century that trousers entered the everyday, propelled by industrial work, wartime necessity and shifting social norms. Once we got a taste for practicality, there was no going back – women wore the pants. But this season, skirts are making a compelling case.

The most interesting thing about skirts in 2026 isn't a hemline, it's the absence of one. Fashion has abandoned consensus. Minis, midis and maxis are happily coexisting, leaving texture, fabric and tailoring to do the talking.An easy entry point is the bias-cut slip skirt, and Paris Georgia has nailed it…