Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Paris Fashion Week: Declining Hemlines And Strange Designs


Let me just say that I don't really know anything about designer clothing. In fact, I am certainly the type of person that prefers fabric comfort over making any type of designer fashion statement.

However, I know that there are people who view the most contemporary fashion design as if it were an art form. So, when it comes to taste in apparel, fashion is clearly in the eye of the beholder.

Fashion Week in Paris ended last Sunday and I decided to use the Internet to look at some of the latest fashion show clothing designs. I was driven to this strange state after recieving my latest 401k account statement that showed the negative impact the recent global stock market carnage had made to my investment holdings.

Consider that I was looking for a future stock market rally by researching a leading economic indicator, the length of designer hemlines. It is thought that when the economy is good, hemlines decline and clothing is short. However, when the economy is bad, hemlines increase and clothing is lengthened.

What was the result of my research about hemlines at Paris fashion week for the Spring design? Here is a quote from Alexandra Shulman, the editor in chief of British Vogue from the Associated Press: "I don't think it's been as exciting as other seasons. On the whole, most of the designers here have kind of stuck to what they know they can do, and not really tried anything that's going to scare the horses. We've seen a lot of very short clothes, which goes against the old idea that when the economy is bad, hemlines go down."

There you have it. Hemlines are not going down. So the economy should improve by next spring. It could well be a sign that its time to buy equities. After the recent market carnage led by the decline of the Investment Banks, could clothing fashion designers perform any worse than current stock brokers?

Probably not, but its still very hard for me to understand who would actually consider wearing some of those strange fashion designs.

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