Can ‘Skirt Lengths’ Really Help Predict the Stock Market?

Welcome to the 214th insertion of DEMUR®, an analytical series highlighting the intricacies of the artistic world and the minutiae lying within. In this episode, we uncover the Hemline Index’s secrets, tracing the relationship between women’s skirts, stock markets and civil unrest.

What and how we wear clothes has forever been a critical indicator of power, cultural interests and social expectations. From middle eastern Burkas to Miu Miu micro skirts, these silhouettes are highly indicative of the lives we live, telling of not only our climates but ways of thought. This concept has been used to leverage trading predictions in the stock market, referencing the lengths of women’s skirts and dresses as a precursor to economic swings.

First recognized by George Taylor in 1926 as the ‘Hemline Index’, his theory is said to suggest that when the economy is doing well, women are drawn towards shorter bottoms, whereas when the economy is foreshadowing a crash, hemlines follow suit. Our hems are supposedly a trend predictor of not only the fashion industry but of the financial district as well, and there’s certainly a case to be made.

Turning back the clock to the roaring 20s, we can easily pinpoint a correlation between the rise of knee-high skirts and an infinite pool of riches. Shorter skirts came into style right as the markets began to skyrocket, pretensing the Great Depression’s skinny, floor-length dresses that would remain until the war boom in the 40s. Riding further up the leg throughout the decade, skirts would become shorter until Dior reintroduced bellowing skirts in ‘47, which many deemed as a prediction for the 1949 recession.

Prompting headlines like “Longer Midi-Skirt Could Affect Nation's Economy,” this alleged cheat had one critical flaw, rooted in the media that preached such promises. Taylor’s analysis was in fact a PhD thesis exploring the surge of hosiery production throughout the 20s, linking one factor to skirt length, not the rise and fall of the stock market. Somehow, outlets distorted this narrative, prompting investors to pour money into a contradictory snippet of debunked misinformation.