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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Social dress

Tryphena Absent

01:36 / 08.04.03

The other day I had a very interesting conversation about hemlines and imminent war. It sees to be the case that just prior to the start of a big conflict hemlines go up a significant amount and women start to show off their legs.

Clothes are generally a reflection of the social and political situation of a moment. The '60s are probably a good (if not the best) example of that, though not specifically linked to war, women wore mini skirts as a sign of their own empowerment. By '69 the feminist movement frowned upon it and trousers were properly introduced for the first time as a female garment. A significant group of women took on the notion that they should engage with the masculine mode of dress. As a result the fashion changed and hemlines came down. Theoretically you can take the advent of mini skirts as a sign of a fight to come as women began to reclaim their bodies with force.

Last season (A/W 2002) was pretty good evidence of the Iraq situation. Mini skirts came back in to fashion and if you examine clothing trends over the last hundred years you'll see a pretty similar pattern. At the moment the shops are littered with short, pleated skirts and they're coupled with mesh vests. There's something very firm and quite arrogant about the clothes that are popular right now, they seem to state an opinion. Though the catwalk has been turning out bright pastels, brown and black the High Street shops appear to be catering last seasons clothes to the masses. Warehouse is selling black and vivid yellow.

Anyone fancy commenting/ elaborating?

03:00 / 08.04.03

I particularily liked the "feral Catholic schoolgirl of the wasteland" shot at your "brown" link above. I'm not much of a fashion... uhh... guy, but it does seem funny that the "black" section you linked to has a technocratic feel to it, while the "tan" (I mean, brown) section is totally the clothing of choice for Tyler Durden's apocalypse.

21:07 / 08.04.03

Tis true.. i was shopping with my mother in Topshop today, and she refused to believe that what i was showing her really was a skirt. Its probably about 5-6 inches long... oh dear. Take a look at the 1st one on here: http://www.topshop.co.uk/promostores/tops/?session_id=19919056

19:38 / 09.04.03

Funnily enough, I remember reading a hemline theory which was slightly different - I think it related more to austerity than war, though. Let's think it through...

1900s - Golden ages, trailing, flouncy, S-shape corsets, whopping hats
1910s - wartime austerity measures - plainer clothes, still long skirts though, more 'masculine' desing elements (IIRC - bit shaky)
1920s - higher skirts, tubular shapes, flappers. Longer in late 20s - poor economy
1930s - longer again, esp for evening - bias cut, elegant skirt suits etc.
1940s - wartime austerity, masculine design elements, shorter skirts
1950s - New Look, wasp waists etc, tight sweaters, capri pants and so forth
1960s - minis and maxis, hippyish stuff, Biba, jeans as general casual wear for the first time (in Britain at any rate)
1970s - more hippy stuff going through into a leaner silhouette at the end of the decade
1980s - innovative shapes putting the emphasis on the shoulders - boxy suits, short skirts. Hollow economic boom time.
1990s - longer skirts at the beginning (remember when absolutely everyone wore long floopy flower-print skirts? About 1993/4 - that'll have been grunge, I suppose, but they were everywhere) and layered silhouettes, followed by much more structured silhouettes (thank you Tom Ford, you git) and skirt hemlines just below the knee for the last three or four years.

I'll be interested to see whether mini skirts catch on. I don't think I personally can carry them off, but if enough people take them up I might be forced to get mine out again (in the privacy of my own room obviously).

I'm not quite sure whether I think that clothes really reflect political events - social and economic trends, yes. I get the feeling that clothes at the moment are so determined by the catwalk (even to the extent that there is hardly anything I want to buy in the shops at the moment because it's all coming from a catwalk season in which I hated most of the stuff the designers showed - mind you it's S/S which never helps) that they probably don't reflect much except a general increase in affluence (or, probably more accurately, increased credit spending). And under that you have a lot of stuff which people will wear - more below-the-knee skirts - because it's easy to carry off provided you pick the right shape.

Burble burble.

23:50 / 09.04.03

also a factor may be the recent transition from the empty yet seemingly potent politics of girl bands back to pretty young things selling records.

ms aguilera, tatu, and britney are all fans of either high hems or low waists, and often both at once.

this must influence us all.

or are they influenced themselves by the rest of us?

12:42 / 10.04.03

"The '60s are probably a good (if not the best) example of that, though not specifically linked to war, women wore mini skirts as a sign of their own empowerment. By '69 the feminist movement frowned upon it and trousers were properly introduced for the first time as a female garment"

Surely this contradicts your theory, since that was the time of the Vietnam war?

(sorry, not trying to come off antagonistic on purpose!)

Tryphena Absent

13:38 / 10.04.03

Oh I was really thinking about Britain, the mini skirt was really a Brit based phenomenon and most people objecting to Vietnam were wearing quite long skirts. When contemplating this I had Quant in mind.

14:56 / 17.04.03

*shudder*
Well if mini skirts come back in fashion here, i'll either have to be unfashionable, or emmigrate. My mum claims to have started the mini-skirt thing in the 60s. I think shes talking shite, just coz none of us were around to prove her wrong.