The global financial crisis, now upgraded by the International Monetary Fund into a ?Great Recession,? has been linked to a great shift in the fashion world: the plunge of the women?s hemline.

Bernard Salt, a noted demographer, has said in a lecture in Melbourne that a ?Great Hemline Shift? is taking place amid the recession, reviving theories on the link between fashion and severe economic circumstances. The most famous of these theories was advanced by US economist George Taylor in 1926 (prior to the Great Crash of 1929), who posited that women?s hemlines rose in good times and fell in bad. Do you see the miniskirt now?

There are other theories associated with bad economic times. He points out that more recently the US chair of Estée Lauder argued that lipstick sales rose in a recession, the argument being that ?when women cannot justify spending money on big-ticket fashion items they indulge themselves in a range of quality lipsticks.? (This theory awaits confirmation from impressionistic observation.)

Another recession myth is under the spotlight. Writing for the Australian newspaper, Salt says that last June Britain?s Independent newspaper carried a report that Japanese social researches had found ?a positive correlation between women?s hairstyles and economic performance.? He adds:

?The logic is that when women can?t spend money on clothes, they choose a hairstyle that offers greater scope for variety and you can do much more with short hair than long hair? The point is that there is an expectation that recessions drive different consumer behavior? There is a different psychology for consumer behavior in a recession that I think would very much play out in the fashion business.

?During the economic boom the fashion industry was geared around the notion of the individual as celebrity.

?The reason is that in a boom we are confident in who we are, in our employability, and perhaps even in our desirability. As a consequence, we look for fashion that enables us to stand out in the crowd.?

Design and designers quickly evolved during the boom to emphasize the quirky and the individualistic, Salt noted.

?Regardless of whether hemlines went up or down in the late 1990s, they mysteriously shifted from horizontal to daringly angled. Some hemlines were even jagged. I can remember at the time of this Great Hemline Shift being greatly puzzled as to why a woman would have a ?deliberately crooked hem.?

?The deeply subliminal answer was that the design had already achieved its end: The wearer was being noticed. She stood apart from the crowd. It could even be argued that the use of gel to spike hair is part of a broader fashion conspiracy to showcase the individual, since no two spiked hairdos are exactly the same.

?But with the recession comes a different set of driving forces. No longer is there an inherent desire to stand apart. Instead the driving need is quite the opposite: it is to fit in.

?In a threatening world we want to retreat to the safety of the herd, the tribe, the family, the community. How many times have you heard world community this year? And during the boom, how often did you hear about the need to celebrate our wonderful individuality?

?In a scary world, those making the case for individuality would be viewed as being a tad frivolous, what matters is unity and community.?

In another part of the world, in Tanzania, these thoughts of an international community all hooked up in the recession were echoed in a grimmer platform. Speaking at an anti-crisis meeting, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss Kahn told delegates that ?the IMF expects global growth to slow below zero this year, the worst performance of our lifetimes.? He urged wealthy Western countries to maintain financial support for low-income nations. He warned that there was now ?a real risk that millions will be thrown back into poverty? across the African continent and that the economic crisis raises ?the real threat of civil unrest, perhaps even war.?

In Melbourne, Salt said that if his assessment was correct, the hottest fashion colors of the recession are likely to be those that offer the greatest range of hues on a single theme: some black, brown, grey (or should that be ?midnight,? ?earth? and ?slate?).

In Manila a few months ago I observed that the dominant colors of women?s dress were black and white, brown and grey. Could this be a reflection of the grim mood that has engulfed the world as the recession deepened?

?In such a world, garment structure would cease to signal the quirky and the off beat, but rather it would reinforce the inherent value and strength of conformity,? Salt wrote. ?A return to traditional design should do the trick. Recession hemlines, on the other hand, would be different, ramrod straight and neatly tucked into their right position.

?Perhaps the recession-inspired need for conformity goes further than the possible use of traditional lines in garment design? I believe that ripped and torn jeans have been a powerful symbol of the boom: ?I stand apart because my jeans do not conform.?? Perhaps during the recession, designer ripped jeans will subside in favor of traditional styles. The reason is this: In a boom a designer rip is your connection to artful bohemia, whereas in a recession it just looks poor.

?If you put all of this together you have the recession driving new consumer behavior in fashion, with women wearing bright lipstick, short hair and long straight hemlines in a traditional couture constructed in earthy hues.?