You can find economic indicators everywhere. From plastic surgery to the number of unclaimed bodies at your local morgue, to even the ‘intensity’ of marine corps advertisements, economists have found countless ways to chart the economic growth of the United States in recent years. However, for the last century of so, researchers and experts have found an area that can tell us quite a lot about the economy: fashion.

For example, let’s start with shoes. According to IBM, The “High Heel Index” works like this: the better the economy is going, the lower the heel. The 20th century echoed this theory quite nicely- in the 1970s, large platform heels and boots were in style, replacing the short, kitten-heeled sandals of the 60s. By the time of the “dot-com bust” at the end of the century, the low, block heels of the 1990s were replaced by high, stilettos popularized in shows like Sex and the City.

Social media analysis by IBM found that heel height peaked at 7 inches around the end of 2009- which according to the World Bank, the US GDP was at its lowest point. By 2011, when US GDP ceased it’s steady incline, heel height had fallen to around 2-3 inches.

The relationship between the strength of the United States economy and fashion extends to male style trends as well. According to Vox, beards can signify the triumph of American capitalism and innovation as they were popular with both Gilded-Age titans of industry and “characteristically disheveled figures” of the tech look like Steve Jobs.

However, it’s important to remember the significance of historical and cultural context when tracing the relationship between fashion and economic trends. For example, in the 1920s and 1930s hemlines were a much better tell at economic health. According to ABC News, economist George Taylor took note of how in the 1920s or the “The Age of the Flapper”, women took to higher hemlines to show off their stockings. By the time of the Great Depression, those stockings had gotten pricier, and women lowered their skirts to hide bare legs.

However, some fashion experts say the Hemline theory doesn’t quite add up. Valerie Steele, acting director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, told ABC News: “Hemlines were starting to come down in ’27 and that was two years before the market crash.”

So is it possible to use fashion as a way to interpret the economy? Fashion, like any other industry, is certainly part of it. As for heel heights, hemlines, and beards- we’ll have to leave it to economists and historians from the future to decide.

Sources:

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp

https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/3/17/14939608/beard-popularity-economics

https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/35985.wss

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https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=86787&page=1