Skirting the issue

What does one wear to meet a U.S. Supreme Court justice? I have to figure it out by Monday, when Antonin Scalia speaks to the Memphis Bar.

Most of my wardrobe would be better suited at a bar than at the Bar, which is kind of funny when you consider I spent the first 18 years of my life dressing up for school chapel services and church three times a week.

So I turned to the smarty internets for skirt-ish inspiration, and came across this picture. (Obviously, I was searching for info in all the wrong places.)

Eighteenth-century panniers. Makes your skirt flat in the front, flat in the back, and really honkin' wide in the middle. As in, "Honey, where did the front door go--err, oh, hmm. Okay then."

From the Wiki page:

By mid-eighteenth century it had been developed into the robe à la française, which ensured that a woman took up three times as much space as a man and always presented an imposing spectacle.

Other sites mention the alternate term "hip improvers," a term obviously coined by someone from the More is Better school of thought. (Probably an ancestor of the person who invented the Burger King Quad Stacker.)

I know times have changed and we whippersnappers would never understand, but come on. I'd be mortified to wear that to a party. With my keen ability to run into doorways and trip over my feet, that dress would be a disaster waiting to happen. Oops -- there goes the parlor table. And the porcelain. And the children and servants.

So I've got all weekend to figure out what I'm going to wear.

I could make my own pannier -- who doesn't want to spend a weekend slaving over a sewing machine stitching steel rods into a petticoat? -- or I could just go out and buy a sensible, conservative, knee-length black skirt.

Tough choice.