Having lived through the Great Recession, I’m sure you already know that, in difficult times, more red lipsticks are sold. It was the president of Estée Lauder, Leonard Lauder, who realized in 2001 that, during the last global economic recession, sales of red lipstick had skyrocketed. This is how the famous “lipstick index” was born, the reliability of which was once again confirmed in a study published in 2012 that found that at the beginning of the 2008 economic crisis, while almost all companies recorded losses, L’Oréal increased them by 5.3 %. However, a good Russian Red It is not the only “informal” index to measure the risk of recession.
If we trust these indicators of being at home, another can be given by the Inditex, Mango or any other clothing firm catalog. Just take a look at the skirts section: the midi cut wins the mini by a landslide. In Zara, for example, a quick filter tells us that right now they have 72 different models of the first for sale and only 34 of the second.
This season, the trends say that the skirt is worn long and that is something that also serves as an economic oracle. This “hem index” was an observation of the Wharton Business School economist George Taylor, who in 1926 developed the theory that skirts get shorter when markets are up and longer in times of recession.
This is something that could be seen in the economic exuberance of the 1920s, when skirts (and dresses) shrank to the knees. However, after the crash from 1929 they returned to take the longest cuts. But, as fashion and the economy not only go hand in hand but are also cyclical, in 1960, and coinciding with favorable financial conditions, the miniskirt appeared on the scene.
However, in 2010, a study by the Econometric Institute of the Erasmus School of Economics (The Netherlands) analyzed monthly data on hems between 1921 and 2009 and found that, while the index is true, it would not really serve as a forecast anymore. what’s wrong with it “a lag of about three years”. Will the midi skirts of now be the result of the 2020 pandemic? The numbers fit.
One of the reasons that George Taylor believed this was due to not having to spend on stockings since the legs were hidden behind maxi skirts. In addition, in good times, producers spent larger budgets for threads or textiles, which could explain, in part, why designers shortened skirts and thus lower costs when things are going well.
Be that as it may, the stagnation of the economy is something that is officially reflected through economic indicators such as GDP, the unemployment rate or the balance of payments and the latest news coming from Brussels is that the eurozone will dodge the economic recession this time. Of course, the long skirt, for now, we’ll keep it, just in case…
Cover photo | zara
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