MODERN LIVING 1965: FASHION The Courage of Courreges

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FASHION The Courage of Courreges

Tugging at hems has been a feminine wile ever since skirts got off the floor, but more and more U.S. girls are now looking for a new parlor trick. Their skirts are soaring so high that no amount of hemming and hauling could help them hide those inches above the knee. Recently imported from Paris, the short, short skirt has been gleefully adopted by the avant-garde among U.S. teen-agers and coeds as the perfect complement to patterned stockings and leather boots—usually white. From San Francisco coffeehouses to Manhattan discotheques, girls are beginning to reveal more thigh than they have stocking to cover.

The man who did most to open up the vistas of vastus lateralis is Andre Courreges, 41, the brightest new star in the Paris firmament. Courreges set up his shop in 1961, soon became known as the trouser king for his slim, slit-at-the-bottom slacks and his formal trouser suits. This February his pencil-thin mannequins popped out in white dresses cut three inches above the knee and mid-calf boots open at the toe. The high-flying hem was born.