STOCKBRIDGE — It may be scientific or silly or serendipitous. You decide.
In the 1920s, economist George Taylor was the first to notice the correlation between fashion and the economy. He called it the "Hemline Theory." Taylor hypothesized that hemlines were shorter in the prosperous 1920s, and women's hemlines lengthened precipitously when the stock market crashed.
Taylor even speculated on the cause. In good times, women wore short skirts to show off their silk stockings. When the market crashed, women lengthened their skirts to hide the fact that they weren't wearing stockings; a luxury they could no longer afford.
Now maybe it had to do with silk stockings and maybe not. In "How Different [Fashion] Trends Reflect the Financial State," Gillian Miller writes there are other factors that influence fashion. She cites cultural trends, politics, and what celebrities wear. Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) Professor John Mincarelli theorized, "Fashion, especially high fashion, is a luxury, in difficult economic times, fashion is one of the first indulgences to go. In rough economic times, people shop for replacement clothes foregoing trends."
Though these experts disagree on the reasons, still throughout the 20th century, they all clung to the idea that trends in fashion predicted, or at least ran concomitantly with, the state of the nation's finances. Even into the 21st century, no one abandoned the idea that women's fashion could predict economic turns. However, they added specific predictors: instead of the hemlines only, it was also lipstick sales, and the height of heels.
According to Estee Lauder, lipstick sales are counter indicators: in economic downturns, lipstick sales soar. Why? It is a cheap fashion accessory. From skirt lengths in the Roaring '20s to lipstick sales throughout the 20th century to heel heights today, female fashion is claimed as a socio-economic indicator.
Recessionary 7-inch heels
The Christian Science Monitor reports on research by IBM "high-heelologists". (Really is that a thing?). They claim, "In an economic downturn, heels go up and stay up — as consumers turn to more flamboyant fashions as a means of fantasy and escape. Accordingly, heel heights were highest — with a median of 7 inches — in 2009, during the peak of the recession."
There is one more study. It theorizes that beauty standards change with the economy too. That is, evidently serious researchers studied many Playboy centerfolds and found the women were heavier during hard times. No one has posited a reason for this correlation.
Back to the tried and true: right now, according to the same high heelologists, heels are about to go down. Does this mean an economic upturn is in the offing? How well do these predictors predict? Looking forward and backward, can we learn about our economy at New York Fashion Week? Forget musty books and tedious lectures, all we need to predict the economic future is Vogue.
Let us recap: hemlines (supposedly shorter when times are good); lipstick (sales go up when the economy tanks), and high heels (higher when indicators are lower). It may be more important than you think to ask: what are women wearing this season?
In the late 19th century a New York newspaper columnist predicted that women pedaling bicycles in skirts that exposed their ankles were "one brief step from prostitution." He saw the fashion trend as an end to civilization as he knew it. Maybe he overreacted. However, pundits, professors and philosophers never cease drawing relationships between women's fashions and everything from philosophy to politics to the economy to a nation's moral fabric. But oh-oh! Recently lipstick sales went up, heels are going down, and hemlines are unchanged. So what are we supposed to predict from that?
Hemlines static (no change in the current economic trend), lipstick sales up (an economic down turn), and heels lower (an economic uptick) which means we are in store for
A Berkshire writer and historian, Carole Owens is a regular Eagle contributor.