The maxi dress may be this season's hottest fashion trend, but it can only remind me of one thing: my first ill-fated attempt at trendiness.

It was 1971, I was a sixth-grader in Hamilton, Ohio, and the times were a-changing. My school, Lincoln Elementary, had recently relaxed its dress code, allowing girls to wear pants. This new leniency rattled some teachers, including one who predicted a Dress-Code Domino Effect. First pants - then, before long, some kid would show up in just a belt and a feather. I wondered: Where would the feather go? You'd have to stick it through the belt, I guess.

But so far, I'd seen nothing extreme. The must-have fashion, in fact, was the maxi - a modest dress that grazed the ankle. (Actually, the dress made a splash in 1968, when Oscar de La Renta created a cotton lace version. Then, three years later, it hit Hamilton.)

After sufficiently badgering my mom, I became the proud owner of a blue-and-red flowered maxi skirt with a peasant blouse. I was excited, until I contemplated actually wearing it in public. Aside from a weekly clarinet lesson, my social calendar was blank. School was the obvious venue for this outfit, but no way was I going to be the first girl in a maxi.

Similar internal struggles, it turns out, were plaguing my friends. They'd also wrangled maxis, but nobody wanted to be the first to wear one. So we made a pact: We would all wear them the same day.

When that day came, about a dozen of us arrived at school in our maxis. My friends admired my puffy-sleeved peasant blouse, with its gathered neck and wraparound skirt. I complimented them on their garb. I felt so chic.

The feeling lasted right up until I heard my name on the intercom. I was to report to the office. We were all to report to the office.

And so we assembled, a gaggle of little Bohemians. Our principal looked us over. Until recently, she'd been our music teacher, a humorless pitch-pipe-carrying woman who infused the singing of "Goober Peas" or "The Erie Canal" with the fun of a boot camp drill.

Henceforth, she informed us, we would not wear our maxi dresses to school. The school staircases made them dangerous - a safety hazard.

At 11, I was so a rule follower. Still, I remember thinking: Safety hazard? You have GOT to be kidding me.

Now, maybe I understand our principal's dilemma. First maxi dresses, then, next thing you knew, we'd be holding sit-ins and taking over the lunchroom. She had to draw the line.

And, as I learned years later, maxi dresses really can be dangerous. Here's a cautionary tale: Once, the moving steps of the escalator in a certain workplace I know caught an employee's long, flowing skirt. In a second, the skirt was off.

By the way, when I announced the principal's edict to my mother, she called the school board to defend my right to self-expression.

No, I'm kidding. When it came to self-expression, Mom was agnostic. But she was a big believer in getting her money's worth. So she cut off a half-foot of fabric. Voila: A midi-skirt. Still, I never wore it to school again.