Strapped for cash

It's an established fact of women's fashion that hem-lines change with economic circumstances. They go up when times are good, usually, and down in a recession. But I was fascinated to read in the latest Economist that bra sales can be an economic indicator too.

I have some expertise in this area: namely that, a couple of years ago on a slow news day, I was asked to interview the Wonderbra model, who happened to be in town. You probably think I jumped at the chance, but you'd be wrong. I accepted the assignment with a heavy heart, in fact, the way one might when asked to cover a hard case at the Coroner's Court.

The trouble is that, in a serious newspaper, writing a piece of this kind is a difficult and often thankless task. On the one hand, there is a "fun" element which you are expected to reflect. On the other, there are boundaries of taste and decorum (some not even marked on the map) which cannot be breached - not for us the grubby double entendres of the yellow press, for example. So in interviewing the Wonderbra model, I had to balance these two well-rounded objectives, and all costs avoid falling into the deep, heaving cleavage (That's enough - Ed) in between.

That was in 1998, around the end of the last "bra wars", according to the Economist, which laments that growth in the market has since "sagged" (it's a sad day when even the Economist resorts to this). But the magazine also reports the latest efforts to stimulate sales, and some of the news is alarming. Specifically that even though the modern brassiere has, the article notes, "as many as 43 components and a design as complicated as a suspension bridge," manufacturers are now trying to go "high-tech". In part this is a response to infrastructural change: as The Irish Times reported earlier this year, breasts in these islands are getting bigger. But the latest innovations draw upon everything from Frisbee design to the principles of the "car airbag". The company that produced the "world's first cordless kettle" is involved - as are a team of German scientists - and one of the prototypes being developed is a pulley-based "variable cleavage" bra in which users could, as it were, pull themselves together at short notice.

None of which augurs well for women who would like to see support garments with an emphasis on comfort rather than exaggeration. I'm told by those who know that bras are sorely lacking in this regard, which is hardly surprising, since some of the names - "ultra-thrust" and "superbooster" and so on - sound more like lawn-mowers.

But to get back to economics. Apparently women cut back on major purchases in a recession and buy underwear to cheer themselves up, so increased bra sales signal an economic downturn. I don't know how reliable this is. It should mean Irish sales have been very depressed in the late 1990s, but I couldn't check with the lingerie shops, because this is a small town and you could get a bad name.

Hem-lines are a pretty reliable indicator of economic fortunes: they went up the 1920s, classically, and down in the 1930s. But they have their limitations. Just a few years ago, for instance, they rose faster than living standards until the fashion was for micro-minis, as clothes designers gambled on things not getting any better. The problem is that, unlike house prices, hem-lines can only go up so far before you have a negative equity problem, so when the boom continued, there was nowhere to go but down.

This was the fashion equivalent of devaluation of the pound, and was a severe humiliation for the industry. Especially since the problem had been experienced before, in the 1960s and early 1970s, when skirts got shorter and shorter (except for the "maxi", which economists have never fully explained) and there was no sign of a recession. With the hem-lines massing along the borders of indecency and growing tension in the Middle-East, the fashion industry famously bought time by inventing "hot pants". Then the oil crisis happened and it was back to long skirts. But the lessons of history are quickly forgotten.

These days the fashion is hovering between a below-knee level look for daywear and a shorter party dress, reflecting uncertainty in the world markets. Last week, the US government reported reduced personal incomes for October - the first monthly fall in two years, according to the New York Times - and computer stocks plunged on the Nasdaq amid signs of a general downturn.

So the message is, if you feel like a buying an expensive dress in the near future, bear in mind that the value of your investment may go up or down. You should also seek the advice of a professional economist. Then you should ignore the advice and ask your friends if they've been buying a lot of underwear lately.

fmcnally@irish-times.ie