The Bottom Part of Baby's Pink Bra Outfit

At the beginning of the "Hungry Eyes" scene, Baby Houseman is dancing in two-piece outfit, the top half of which looks like a bra. The material is pink, with small, white polka-dots. Watch the first 45 seconds of the following video clip.

The outfit's bottom part is made of the same material and is high-waisted. The following screenshot provides the maximum view of that bottom part.

One of the persistent mysteries in my many-years analysis of the movie has been that outfit's bottom part. I assumed mostly that it was capri pants, but my soul remained troubled by doubts. We all will die with some questions unanswered and perhaps unanswerable forever.

Tonight, however, this particular prayer of mine has been answered. While I was searching the Internet for new insights into the movie, I came across the following photograph.

Now I don't understand how I ever thought the bottom part was capri pants. On that speculation, I went down a very wrong road for a very long time.

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Now, however, I must address another question about that outfit's bottom.

Did girls wear such shorts in 1963?

In a previous article, titled The Worst Costume Mistake in Dirty Dancing, I argued that no girls in 1963 wore shorts this high on the thighs.

Shorts that never were worn by any American girl in 1963

In the early 1960s, girls' shorts extended farther down the thighs, as shown in the following image.

The 1964 movie Bikini Beach shows a lot of girls' shorts in the segment from 34:30 to 41:30. You will see that the girls' shorts worn there provide much evidence for my thesis.

However, at the bottom of that article, a know-it-all reader wrote the following comment.

Really?
Nope.
Wrong.
All you've got to do is google short shorts...start with 1950s. They were a fashion item then so it is not too far flung to think that teenage girls weren't rolling up the legs on their short creating short shorts in the 1960s era in this movie.

Before going to Google, I searched YouTube and immediately found the following video from the year 1958.

Then when I Googled short shorts 1950s, I found many photographs of short shorts. The following photograph is just one example.

Girls wearing short shorts in the 1950s

However, that does not prove that girls wore such shorts in 1963.

When I Googled short shorts 1963, I found the following photographs from that year.

Anyway, I am far from being an authoritative analyst of the movie's clothing fashions. That field of study remains uncharted territory. The most that I can do now is to point the way for future generations of cinema students.