Why is everything in fashion suddenly a ‘recession indicator’? Peplum tops, skinny jeans and the return of indie sleaze aren’t just cyclical trends but signs of an economic slump, if the internet is to be believed.
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A few days into Paris Fashion Week, a friend and fellow editor texted me: “The return of business casual to the club is a recession indicator.” Is it true? Can we deduce the state of the US economy based on the return of blazers to bar life? Online, signs of a recession are everywhere if the commentariat is to be believed — peplum tops, indie sleaze, skinny jeans and skinny scarves apparently all indicate an economic slump.
As is common with internet speak, it might have gone too far. Can everything from Lady Gaga’s return to form on Mayhem to boho chic and an upcoming Suits reboot really be recession indicators? Or is it just the latest spin on our ongoing obsession with nostalgia, a social media quip to show one’s commentary is more high brow and informed than the next? In fashion, what actually indicates a recession?
One could argue — if one is imaginative and humorous enough, that is — that slim silhouettes like the skinny jean can mark a looming recession due to the mere fact that they use less fabric. Or that the style cognoscenti re-embracing indie sleaze elements is a brand of nostalgia that indeed takes us back to the times before and immediately following the 2008 financial crisis. But for the most part, these are mere examples of fashion cyclicality.
Slim silhouettes being back on the runways are a classic case of a swinging pendulum — things got too wide, as oversized as they could (designers, take this not as a challenge) so now we must go elsewhere. And indie sleaze? That’s just the case of a generation of fashion lovers who were too young to partake in its first wave having the opportunity to do so now. (Another instance of this would be the enthusiasm for boho chic, fuelled by Chemena Kamali’s Chloé debut last year.)
Rather, what happens when we take these popular internet phrases and shoehorn them into describing today’s trends is that we more often than not lose valuable hindsight — the kind that makes trend reporting such an alchemical yet accurate science. We used to be able to look back at fashion and recognise its patterns as either nothing more than a returning trend or as markers of broader cultural stories when the evidence presented them as such.
It’s almost as if now we are unable — or uninterested — in taking in the big picture. The quick hits of discussing fashion based on internet talking points du jour make for entertaining social media discourse, but calling anything and everything a ‘recession indicator’ or, to look at last week’s column, a case of ‘nacho reheating’ flattens much of the cultural and historical context attached to fashion. Take the case of peplums — we could call them a recession indicator to be funny, surely, but they actually tend to come back in style after moments of crisis (one of the most famous peplum shapes in fashion history is Christian Dior’s New Look jacket, which came after World War II).
What we can’t ignore, however, is that some economic indicators are indeed raising red flags at the moment — a recent Deutsche Bank survey points to a 43 per cent chance that the United States is headed for a recession. The last time the US entered a recession period, other than in the aftermath of the pandemic, was once again in 2008; an era in fashion collectively remembered primarily for two things.
For insiders, there was the arrival of Phoebe Philo at Celine, which swiftly became a dominating, agenda-setting force that defined much of the past decade and a half in fashion, whether by designers emulating her aesthetic or by her acolytes going on to design for major labels (Daniel Lee, first at Bottega Veneta and now at Burberry; Peter Do; and Rok Hwang of Rokh are a few that spring to mind). Philo’s singular brand of minimalism was appropriate for the moment, a time in which luxury went quiet as affluent consumers embraced a more subdued look attune to the economic hardships of the time. Glaring and unabashed displays of wealth were a swift no-go.
#fashion #luxuryfashion #style