« Previous | Main Page | Next »

The picture shows the once-hot fashion on the left, the current mid-rise style in the middle and the "mom jeans" that a style that will come later in the bear market. The article claims the durability of the "ultra-low-rise" look is a mystery, but, there's a perfectly logical socionomic explanation. The fashion endured because many stocks continued to hit new highs. Both trends are reversing now because one of the fashion trends that accessorizes a bear market in social mood is a gradual covering of the female body. This is discussed and demonstrated in the entries of March 3, October 21, October 7 and September 15. It's only starting to hit the overall stock market, but, for several months, the downturn has been having its way with many leading-edge stocks and social indicators, like fashion.

At this point, the cover-up even appears to be extending to men's fashion. Check out this clip from today's issue of The New York Times:

Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol
A Ralph Lauren model with the big beard that is the look of the moment.

John Martin, the advertising director for Vice, a lad magazine based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn [says his] idea of a style symbol, is Ulysses S. Grant, whose beard he came to admire after watching the 2003 Civil War-era drama " Cold Mountain ." Two years ago, when he began experimenting with different beard styles, which he described as ranging from neat to burly to unkempt, his facial hair was an expression of individuality in a tide of metrosexual conformity. Now 10 of his 15 co-workers at Vice wear full, bushy beards. In that, they vie with the pro-facial-hair contingent of an editorial rival, Spin, where a rash of new beards has broken out. 

"It's a sign of the times," Martin said. "People are into beards right now." 

At hipster hangouts and within fashion circles, the bearded revolution that began with raffishly trimmed whiskers a year or more ago has evolved into full-fledged Benjamin Harrisons. At New York Fashion Week last month at least a half-dozen designers turned up with furry faces. The return of the wild beard carries a certain erotic charge that has been missing from beards since the Furry Freak look of the 1970's, or at least those who grow them hope they do. 

With men, it's not necessarily a function of covering the body, but the uptick in facial hair definitely strikes a bearish chord. This is confirmed by the reference to the 1970s, the last bear market decade. Beards are a little warmer, cheaper and more in tune with an attitude of survival, which becomes a prevailing objective in a bear market.