Just to put in my two pennies worth – this discussion began with talking about long skirts and denim.
Long skirts; I used to wear floor-sweeping (denim!) skirts as a teenager, but that was a phase I grew out of and from an outside point of view I can say that it really doesn’t look good on someone who feels they should be presenting herself as an ambassador for royalty. However, this is floor-sweepers I am talking about. Ankle-length is fine and many women in my community wear skirts on or just above their ankle (please don’t make any comments about ‘just because everyone does it’ – JMH knows where I live and would completely agree with me).
Denim; stonewashed/faded denim looks very, very casual and highly unrefined – as someone once pointed out to me, it looks as though that part of the outfit has been worn away, especially when it’s on the seat area. However, darker colours of denim are absolutely fine, it really depends on whether the skirt in question is a jean skirt or just a skirt that happens to be made out of denim. Jean skirts can be extremely figure-hugging…
On a final note, there is a certain trend recently where ladies and girls wear tunics with a pencil skirt underneath, or dresses that have a very straight style skirt. The problem with these is that many of these skirts and dresses are made of materials that ride up when sitting down, even if the skirt itself covers the knees perfectly when standing. And I know of many people who fall into this mistake, and one can see three inches above their knees once they sit down. Not kidding. And the other problem, tunic-wise, is that these people are buying the pencil skirt to make the tunic more tzanua! Go figure it out. Maybe instead of ranting about long skirts we should be hearing tznius talks about tunics…