Long vs short

Interesting idea.  A competition between long and short.  The question is:  Long vs Short what?  Are we talking coats, hair, pants, skirts, dresses?  How long is long and how short is short and who should wear them/it (whatever it is that is either long or short)? I've had both of everything listed above.  Short skirts, dresses and pants (aka shorts or capris), short hair, long hair, in-between and Ican'tmakeupmymind hair.  The length of my clothes depended on what era I happened to be in.  When I was so much younger, you know, back in the days of the dinosaurs a century ago, short things were very much in, and I had a very skinny body to wear them on, but time, age and way too many cookies, large meals and children changed my shape and my hemlines accordingly.  Funny how that works.  When I was in school (remember we're talking the days of the dinosaurs here) skirts and dresses could be no shorter than the middle of your knee.  Why this was so, I have no idea.  Either some fashion guru or somebody's mother thought that was the ideal length.  Not too short, not too long - kind of like the inbetween hair.  Then came the "revolution".  Hemlines got higher, thus making skirts and dresses considerably shorter.  School policy, unfortunately, did not keep up with the times and I know a number of girls who were sent home to change because their dresses were too short (actually looking back the skirts were above the knee, but long enough to cover bum and upper leg, so I'm not sure what the real issue was, but there it is).
Guys didn't get off any easier.  No jeans, no shorts to school unless they were below the knee (what's with the knee thing anyway?) short hair, ties, and dress slacks.  Mind you if you happened to go to a school where there was a uniform, it didn't really matter since it was the UNIFORM.  I still see students in uniforms, but the girls wear the skirts so short I'm surprised there is actually any material there.  Which is fine because they are very young and can get away with it, but in the winter I wonder just how warm they are with so little on.  Mind you, when you are young you don't think of those things - well, unless you are my mother and then she was of the opinion that it didn't matter what you wore or how you looked as long as you were warm.  She got my vote on that.  Still does, although these days I live in warm countries, so now it's more a matter of keeping cool.  However, what goes around comes around as the saying goes, and at my age I'm back in fashion.  My skirts and dresses are once again at mid-knee length, though I do wear shorter shorts and jeans, as do many of the people I have worked with.  However, I will balk at wearing very short dresses and don't care if the fashion experts, or somebody's mother says it's the rage.  So the question still remains, long vs short what, and to that I add, who cares?