ONE SMALL consolation about the predicted recession is that it could force a much-needed correction in the relationship between the women's fashion industry and the construction sector. Specifically, my hope is that the notorious "builder's bum" look will finally disappear from the former; and that it will be returned exclusively to the latter - and left there, where it belongs, writes Frank McNally.
I know that, technically, this would require hemlines to rise - whereas the tradition is that, in bad times, they go down. But that idea dates from an era when most women still wore skirts. Trousers have long since taken over as the norm, so the waistband must now at least rival the dress turn-up as the key indicator in fabric economics.
In this revised model, it's not whether hemlines are going up or down that matters; it's their deviation from the female equatorial region. If hemlines are heading away from the Tropics again - I apologise for where this metaphor has taken us - it can only mean a return to higher-cut waistlines on jeans. And not before time.
In this country at least, women's fashions have reflected the construction boom to an extent that was not healthy. For a while there, they were even mirroring the debate among architects about the Dublin skyline, as low-rise jeans tops competed - often fiercely - with high-rise knickers. The resultant vistas, while undeniably dramatic, could also be unsightly, presenting observers with the worst of both worlds.
But bad as the exposed underwear look could be, sometimes, at least it was in keeping with classical economics. The defining short skirts of the 1920s were designed to allow women to show off the expensive stockings they could now afford to buy. By the 1990s, a similar principle meant you could display the top of your designer underwear.
The builder's bum look, however, was a step too far. It wasn't helped by other effects of the boom - such as the fact that human waistlines widened at a faster rate than the clothes manufacturers could apparently deal with. The combination of muffin tops and buttock cleavage was the clothes industry's equivalent of the sub-prime crisis. We can only hope that the worst of the old jeans will now be written off, and that from here on, the fashion houses will produce trousers with a more sustainable base.
RATHER than being an accidental fashion disaster, of course, the builder's bum craze may have been a conscious tribute by women to the construction workers - still mostly male - who fuelled the boom. That, at least, is one possible interpretation of a story in the English newspapers about a further education college in Kent, which has been forced to protect builders working on its campus from "wolf-whistling girls".
According to the Daily Telegraph, authorities at West Kent College in Tonbridge were sufficiently concerned about the trend to send an e-mail to all pupils warning of disciplinary action against anyone found guilty of such behaviour.
The e-mail read: "It has come to the attention of the college that some female students have been making comments to, or whistling at, the builders, both whilst on site and as they walk around the campus. Although we are sure no offence is meant, this constitutes harassment and is wholly unacceptable."
The whistling started as a gender-reversal joke, apparently. It may even have been an expression of genuine admiration for the work being done. After all, there's a generation of young women now who grew up watching Bob the Builder, that elegy to the can-do spirit of construction workers everywhere. But as we've seen from the fashion industry, even homage can be taken too far.
At any rate, the college has been obliged to clamp down. It is, nonetheless, a relief to read that the warning to pupils was not the result of complaints from those whistled at (there haven't been any, it seems). Like its Irish counterpart, the British construction industry has been experiencing what economists call a "softening" in recent times. But it's not that soft yet, thank God.
SUDDENLY, everything has a poignant end-of-era feel to it - as with the news that a 25-year-old Dubliner has been judged the world's best coffee maker. It is exactly 25 years since the last Irish recession, according to the ESRI. So Stephen Morrissey's entire life, culminating in his triumph in the "World Barista Championships" in Denmark at the weekend, could be seen as a product of the boom years.
Caffeine - and the ever-increasing sophistication of its delivery - was central to that boom. Back in 1983, if anyone in Ireland had described himself as a "barista", you would have assumed he was a lawyer with a pronunciation problem. Tea was still supreme here then. Coffee was available in two varieties: black and white. And as for cup sizes, we could still only dream of a world in which, one day, "tall" would be the technical term for the smallest measure available in a cafe.
I note that the young barista's winning portfolio included four espressos, four cappuccinos, and "four original signatures drinks", whatever they might be. Twenty-five years ago, an original signature drink was a pint of Guinness with the barman's initials on the head. I also see that Morrissey has just started a coffee-roasting business "in London". God, it's like the 1980s all over again.