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A pound of flesh.
Aug. 10th, 2010 10:45 amThe she-David keeps a stack of copies of Vogue in her bathroom. I'm not sure why she does this as the pages aren't perforated or particularly absorbent, but I make do and sometimes use them for the unexpected purpose of reading. Well, I say 'reading' but there's not much in the way of words in Vogue. It's mostly pictures of stick-insect-like women covered in fabrics which might, under very specialised circumstances, be called clothing and whislt browsing this a thought occurred to me.
There's a economic/fashion theory which says that skirt hemlines rise and fall roughly in parallel with prosperity and the stock market, and there's a lot of evidence from the 20th century (in the West, anyway. less so in Saudi Arabia) to demonstrate this seems to be the case. The thinking is that when people feel prosperous and resource-rich then evolution has told us it's a good time to get mating, and so mass fashion reflects that in the signals it sends out. On the other hand, when the economy hits the buffers everyone takes a long look at Gordon Brown and decides that mating is completely off the menu and less flesh is displayed by the fashion houses as a result.
Anyway, it appears one of the more popular looks this season is short skirts combined with black leggings and that struck me as interesting as it combines indications of economic confidence and fear; high hemlines, but covering the flesh just in case. It's a look we last saw in the early 1990s just before the inherent instability of the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the Lawson Boom meant the pound took a pasting. I'm wondering if this repeat of fashion is in some way symbolic of the current apparent recovery; could the leggings and skirts of the nations' eligible ladies be a barometer?
There's a economic/fashion theory which says that skirt hemlines rise and fall roughly in parallel with prosperity and the stock market, and there's a lot of evidence from the 20th century (in the West, anyway. less so in Saudi Arabia) to demonstrate this seems to be the case. The thinking is that when people feel prosperous and resource-rich then evolution has told us it's a good time to get mating, and so mass fashion reflects that in the signals it sends out. On the other hand, when the economy hits the buffers everyone takes a long look at Gordon Brown and decides that mating is completely off the menu and less flesh is displayed by the fashion houses as a result.
Anyway, it appears one of the more popular looks this season is short skirts combined with black leggings and that struck me as interesting as it combines indications of economic confidence and fear; high hemlines, but covering the flesh just in case. It's a look we last saw in the early 1990s just before the inherent instability of the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the Lawson Boom meant the pound took a pasting. I'm wondering if this repeat of fashion is in some way symbolic of the current apparent recovery; could the leggings and skirts of the nations' eligible ladies be a barometer?
