About Brad Sugars

Maxi dresses were a huge trend in summer/fall 2007...right before the housing market crashed.

There are lots of correlations that usually don’t mean anything, but several economists swear they really can correlate certain trends with the financial market and can predict or move with the U.S. economic market.

BusinessWeek has reported a few of these superstitious predictors. Back in 2008, the magazine looked into more than 20 years of hair data (how this data was gathered and why it was even kept is something we don’t know) and how long Japanese women’s hair was, or what the hairstyle trend was, was in line with the market;

in 1990, 60% of the women surveyed kept their hair long or semi-long. But by 1997, when the economy was flagging, short or medium for the first time accounted for more than half of all haircuts. In 1998, Japan’s economy was savaged by major financial bankruptcies, including that of Yamaichi Securities, at the time the country’s fourth-biggest broker.

Today, with Japan enjoying its longest postwar stretch of uninterrupted economic growth, over 80% of the women have reverted to either long or semi-long lengths.

Skirt hemlines are said to be a common correlation with the market, as well. The stock market’s crash of 1929 was a defining moment for the economy and skirt heights; both  plummeted, with hemlines below mid-calf. A decade later, on the eve of the World War II, the U.S. economy entered an 80-month expansion which lasted through February 1945, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. During this time, knee-length skirts became ubiquitous, though the trend had more to do with conserving fabric for the war effort than with the economy. But by the ’60s, miniskirts were in full swing…and so was the economy.

Remember what women were wearing right before the housing market crash from fall 2007 to about 2009? Floor-length maxi dresses were the huge trend in dresses. Seriously…this market-predicting trend is uncanny.

However, hemline indicators are a bit hazy currently. At New York Fashion Week, hemlines were reportedly all over the place — miniskirts and shorts, knee-length, and long dresses were all shown.

Which might be accurate, actually, as the market is still a bit…well, all over the place.