There are ways of predicting economic doom that are far more fun than ESRI reports, writes ANN MARIE HOURIHANE
H OLY COLLAPSING economies, as the radio presenter Ryan Tubridy put it last week, when his programme followed a news bulletin which had pretty well forecast fire and brimstone and the return of feudal practices, such as the landlord's right to the first night with the bride. This forecast has been referred to elsewhere as the ESRI report. That will be the ESRI report which was issued with the slogan "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid" emblazoned on its cover.
Grown-ups do love to be frightened, like children at a fairground. The economy is our rollercoaster. But there are other ways of predicting what is going to happen to the economy, and they are much more fun. Take skirt lengths, for example; one of the most reliable economic predictors available to researchers. We should have known what was round the corner when the maxi skirt suddenly reappeared last year. This year maxi dresses are everywhere, hanging disconsolately on the bargain rails of all the shops, stranded by the rainfall and the slump in consumer confidence.
When markets fall hemlines fall. When hemlines fall heel heights are greatly reduced (because it just looks wrong, not because it is inadvisable to wear a long skirt with high heels for safety reasons). And in times of recession cleavage retreats back under wraps, a trend already identified by the Observerwomen's magazine a few weeks ago under the memorable headline "Put Them Away, Love". And so the fashion on our streets will change, perfectly reflecting our straitened circumstances. That's the theory anyway, despite the fact that teenagers in the Topshop dressingrooms last week were still trying on frilled pelmets of skirts in tiny flower prints. Bless them.
The theory linking skirt lengths with the performance of the economy was first articulated in modern times by Ralph Rotnam in May 1967. Rotnam was working as a stock analyst, whatever that is, but he still found time to look at pretty girls in short skirts. So he developed the simple theorem that short skirts reflect a bull market and long skirts reflect a bear market. He made a chart linking the directions of hemlines and of stocks and claimed "as a barometer this chart is 100 per cent correct". 1967 may have been the height, as it were, of the mini. But history has not always supported Rotnam's neat idea, as those of us who briefly stomped around in black stretch mini skirts and opaque tights during the recession of the 1980s can testify.
However, on the whole Ralph Rotnam seems to have been vindicated. Our latest boom did bring us mini skirts, and other fashion signs of plenty. Like fake tan and the return of baby doll and ethnic dresses - neither of which had been seen in any great numbers since the 1960s. It brought bling by the bushel, epitomised by the designer handbag and, latterly, vertiginous heels. Of course, most of us didn't actually wear this stuff - we have to go to work in the real world, after all - but we knew it was out there, in the fashion playground. Along with all that plastic surgery which, presumably, will now cease; or, if it doesn't cease, at least plastic surgery will become more muted, like the rest of the fashion landscape. Designers have been talking for a year about the return of strict tailoring, a sure sign that the party was over.
Fashion is about how people look, and aspire to look, and it is regarded as a frippery by the more earnest amongst us. But there are serious issues at work among all that air-brushing, what the fashion commentator Shirley Willetts calls "the collective social emotions". The pope came out last week in order to deny, through the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, that his red shoes were made by the fashion house Prada, as had been widely reported. In fact, they are made by a non-aligned cobbler. These things mean something, and always have. As L'Osservatore Romanoput it while putting the record straight regarding the pope's shoes: "The banality of our times does not even recognise that the colour red has a clear sacrificial significance." No less a fashion authority than Patricia Field, famous for styling Sex and the Cityand The Devil Wears Prada, said on American television last week that Cindy McCain, the wife of the Republican presidential nominee, was too thin. "It looks weak," said Field. It was a moment which was the fashion equivalent of a soccer pundit saying that Manchester United aren't much to write home about. Since the 19th century, in fashion thin has always been good. In troubled times the shoulder pad sneaks back, giving thin women the wide shoulders of an athlete or of a warrior. As the potential first ladies square up to each other, a super-slender Cindy McCain may not look as reassuring as a Michelle Obama who looks healthy and very strong.
This is a much more significant detail about Michelle Obama than her Jackie Onassis pearls.
It is sad to say goodbye to the mini skirt, the fashion world's equivalent of sunshine. But like the plenty that they represent they will be back, perhaps sooner than we think. The designer handbags may not be so sorely missed.