We are sorry, sorry little püppchens.
From Forbes, Monday:
Recession Fashion
The fall 2014 fashion indicators are that the economy is going to stay in the doldrums at least, or that there might be war or general breakdown, at the extremes....MORE
No matter what fashion indicator one favors—skirt lengths, nail polish, no fashion at all—they’re all pointing downward, and may even be signaling a larger collapse.
Some friends wanted to know the meaning of the New York Times T Magazine fall fashion cover, which featured a woman with lank hair huddled in what looked like a man’s grey tweed overcoat, looking like she’d slept in it at the bus station.
Can this possibly be how affluent women aspire to look in 2014? Call it recession fashion. It has finally sunk in that the problems following the financial meltdown in 2008 are permanent. Fashion designers have caught the zeitgeist.
Gee, luxury and shabbiness would seem to be inconsistent! Oh, no. There is ample precedent from the prewar period.
In the 1930s, as the world was sinking into war, Chanel showed cocktail dresses with ragged hems. Elsa Schiaparelli, whose house has been revived just in time for the next collapse, made dresses with trompe l’oeil rips and tears. Bertolt Brecht wore baggy overcoats made by the finest tailors and wire-rimmed glasses made of platinum.
On to our indicators:
Dark nail polish. Our nail polish economic indicator is moving the needle to 11. The newest colors are variations on a theme of black. Editors went for Jin Soon’s Nocturne, a blue-black, and Farrago, a gilded aubergine.
Midi skirts. No garment so epitomizes the stagnant ‘70s as the midi skirt—which gave credence to the skirt length theory of economic indicators in the first place. Even when disco got rolling and women went braless in the mid-‘70s, their knees were covered....
HT: Matt Levine at Bloomberg
S&P 500 1988.48 up 0.04; DJIA 17,017.20 up 3.33
See also:
The Midi Skirt, Divider Of Nations
