your skirt length will change the economy

For my dissertation I chose to study the argument that British fashions of the 20th century were affected by the changes of the economy throughout the same period.

One day a few summers ago, whilst reading the paper, I came across an interesting article that stated that in 1926, George Taylor argued an economic theory labeled as 'the hemline index'. This index was a view that in times of good economy, hemlines in fashion are shorter, and when the economy took a downturn, hemlines followed suit.

Over the eighty year period that I studied from 1920 to 2000 there appeared to be a link between the feelings of wealth and shorter hemlines and hemlines dropping during periods of financial difficulty such as recession.

George Taylor's theory that there was a direct link between hemlines and wealth, is an over simplification. In actual fact, throughout the 20th century when the economy improved, the fashion industry was able to use techniques such as embellishment and printing, and take more risks int he design and people had the wealth to buy these products. In times when the economy was suffering, shorter hemlines were not observed and these products would have been less readily available, designers and manufacturers became more risk adverse, and the public, with less disposable income, bought less, concentrating on a need for utility clothing. The desire was for items of clothing that could be worn to a variety of occasions.