Swinging Into Spring Sixties Style

This spring’s hottest fashion craze is a blast from the past. To state that it’s hot would be an understatement. Love them or hate them, hot pants are back! Once more these shortest of all shorts will be baring all of those thighs and even a smidgen of buttock if you dare.

Some people mistakenly believe that short shorts had their origin with the legendary cut-off jeans sported by one, Daisy Duke, on the long-lost television series, The Dukes of Hazzard. Daisy, however, had simply created a hillbilly adaptation of the original and, oh-so-cool, hot pants that we wore to shock our parents and mortify our grandparents back in the late sixties. Hot pants are hot once more, and again they beg the fashion query, how short is too short?

Long before most of you fashion divas who are already rushing out to a nearby boutique to pay serious amounts of money for these very, short little shorts, were born, I was cool. Yes. I know. It is hard for me to believe it, too. My favorite hot pants were shocking pink in a soft, almost velvety, brushed denim. The only good news about my first hot pants is that I wore them "BC" – before childbearing. Okay.

If you’ve got great legs and a tight butt, maybe you can dare to bare your upper thighs, and even bend over, only slightly, to make the style work. If, however, you’ve long since felt the pull of gravity on your derriere, you’d better leave this fashion fad to harder bodies.

Still, this is not some sort of whim of the moment fashion craze. Several top designers featured short "hot pants" in a myriad of interesting interpretations in their shows last fall and we are now seeing them being sported by models in magazines, actresses on location and, of course, mannequins at shops.

Of all the styles I like the "jeans" tradition best. This look, with back pockets and a zip-fly, tends to be a bit more classically groovy. Others, such as the puffy looking "harem hot pants" that seem to be worn with an equally silly looking top, would require a runway model’s body and her sheer nerve to be seen in.

Other "hot" in looks include one of my personal favorites making a return for another spring and summer run, the "maxi dress". Several of these are following the skin revealing trend set by hot pants and, as such, sport slits up to mid and upper thigh. Cool cottons in soft crinkles, some adorned with beads or other fancy needlework are perfect for a day at the beach or a night at a poolside party.

Today we have a better way to bronze all of this naked skin we’ll be showing off in the spring’s retro-looks. It’s a lifesaver that we didn’t have when I was wearing hot pants. Say no to skin cancer and premature aging, and do your skin a favor. Get your tan from a spray booth or other all-natural self-tanning product. Safer than the sun’s damaging rays, today’s self-tanners and spray tans are a lot better than my alternatives.

We had to choose between sunburns and that stuff that turned you orange! So, be cool and wear the hot pants and the slit skirts. Show them a little or a lot of leg, all bronzed by the fake sun, and have fun. Who knows how many decades it will be before a fad this daring comes along again?