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subscribe to style file blog via RSSfree speech: hadley freeman on shouldering the burden of the economy
July 16, 2008 9:52 am
One of the most convenient theories ever coined for both fashion and financial writers with pressing deadlines and depleting ideas is that the height of hemlines is somehow a prophetic statement about the economy. High hemlines equals high earnings; low hemlines equals low earnings. The idea that financial buoyancy would make women wish to dress like prostitutes is one that seems based more on hearsay than hard facts, but nonetheless, the theory has stuck.
For much longer, though?
Now that the economy is generally acknowledged to be in freefall, where are the hemlines to be found? All over the place, that’s where. High, low, at the knee, mid-calf—not much help, is it? So is there any fashion trend that is indicative of the financial markets? Let’s see what’s coming up for next season. Well, according to several fashion magazines, sculptural coats are very important. I’m not entirely sure what a sculptural coat is, so talking about them in relation to the stock market would be a little difficult. But I do know that big shoulders are almost as important as sculptural coats. Now that’s an interesting one. Last time big shoulders were around, Ronald Reagan was in the White House. While the eighties are generally thought of as a boom era, they did follow quite a significant period of bust. So maybe there’s some secret in the shoulders. The theory behind the hemlines shtick is that when one is wealthy, one has confidence; ergo, one gets one’s legs out. But when one is poor, one goes into mourning and one’s legs go into hiding. Extending that analogy to the upper body, you could say that when one is poor, one needs more confidence so one bulks up one’s shoulders. But seeing as big shoulders were quite a feature at the recent couture shows, too, they might have a slightly different significance, such as that big shoulders provide a useful way of hiding one’s funds from one’s now less financially secure friends (a bulging wallet is just too obvious and insensitive in these tricky times—stashing your cash in an oversize shoulder treatment, on the other hand, is far more discreet.)
Or perhaps the beefed-up shoulder, which has the effect of making one’s waist appear smaller in contrast, is heartening proof that even in times of impending bankruptcy, some things never change: You can never be too thin, even if you’re no longer too rich.
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