No history of the pencil skirt is complete without reference to Marilyn, as Rosalind Jana writes for Australian Vogue.
“The pencil skirt became a defining garment of the 1950s and early 1960s. It could be luxuriously smart, as seen in lime green on Grace Kelly in Rear Window. It could exude sex appeal, as demonstrated by Sophia Loren who paired it with strappy tops and tightly tailored jackets. It could be chic in black on Audrey Hepburn. For Marilyn Monroe, perhaps the most famous wearer of the pencil skirt, it came to define an entire aesthetic: one predicated on a particularly voluptuous projection of femininity, complete with tight sweaters, crisp white shirts and an overarching emphasis on her hourglass figure. Like the hobble-skirt, it required a very particular way of walking—see Monroe’s famous wiggle epitomised in Some Like It Hot, her wide-eyed character Sugar Kane sashaying provocatively in the skin-tight skirt.”
