It would be fair and entirely accurate to surmise that at five feet nothing, long, billowing Cinderella type skirts would not be my best bet. And while the more lithe, giraffe-statured ones amongst us can impart a certain gazelle-like grace to even the most voluminous numbers this season, let it be said that for the rest of us, long skirts can spell disaster of the PT Barnum circus tent kind.

I have dearly striven for the insouciant hippyness of a crinkled, flowing ghagra and more often settled for the meringue like matronliness evoked by our other fashion foolish friend, Maria, from The Sound of Music. The mini, I have averred, is the perfect antidote to the old-fashioned primness, the Victorian drabness that is summed up in the yards of fabric that are so flagrantly consumed in the making of a floor-sweeping skirt. And need I mention that long skirts are receptacles for all kinds of dust and dirt, daintily swishing against the floor, picking up millions of microbes and noxious substances along the way? The mini, I counter is chic, short and hygienic. The only thing it picks up are men.

Lately, however, I've been having doubts. A coral-hued, silk sheath with the tiniest, most perfect, ivory beads, has taken me to the other side. Perhaps there is something to be said for the short skirt's more forgiving cousin, after all. It can cover up a multitude of sins: fat ankles, fat calves, ugly calves, sturdy thighs, spindly thighs, cellulite. It imparts a sort of aloof mystery to the wearer and lets the world know that, unlike her conspicuous counterpart, she leaves something to the imagination. As one man I asked put it, "Isn't there something more elegant, more mutedly sexy, in revealing just a flash of ankle, rather than miles of naked skin?"

I reluctantly give in and end up wearing said coral skirt to an outdoor party. I pair it with the highest heels imaginable and spend the evening tottering back and forth, demurely picking up the sides of my skirt every time I cross a patch of rain squelched mud. "You look just like Cinderella," one of my friends tells me. "Very anxious."

Somewhere along the evening, I let my skirt drop to the floor and forget about the brown stains collecting at the hem. I feel very glam when I sweep around the place like one of those Chinese acrobats on wheels that are hidden by capacious red robes.

My moment of triumph comes when a doddering relative asks if I've grown lately. That the said family member is a) wheelchair bound and therefore b) not the most reliable yardstick for height-related issues, does nothing to dampen my joy. I glide around dreamily.

And, just like that, for those precious few inches, long skirts I decide, can't be so entirely pointless, after all.