Undressing the Fashionable Myth

This coming Saturday is our big Symposium in which I will finally present my paper on the hemline index. Although I've mentioned it a few times on this blog, I realize I haven't barraged you with info on it, even though it has been something I've labored over all semester. The main myth I'm proving wrong is this idea that the concept was invented in 1926 by George Taylor (a "fact" which is repeated all over the internet). After finding nothing from him in 1926 I found a few sources that pointed instead to his 1929 thesis about the hosiery industry. I got the thesis from interlibrary loan and wasn't able to find a hemline theory anywhere. He did point out that shorter skirts in the 1920s meant better times for legwear manufacturers, but that really isn't the same thing as proposing a correlation between the world economy and hemlines.

As far as the hemline index itself, I think I make some pretty sound arguments against it. The message of my paper, as with many others in my class, is that fashion is so much more complicated that these myths lead you to believe. There is no one thing (like the economy) that influences trends, and there is no single way that people express themselves with fashion. Other people's papers have taught me to be suspect of any claim about someone "inventing" a fashion item (the little black dress, the mini-skirt), and to be careful about seemingly familiar terminology (What design elements are actually reminiscent of ancient Greece? Were all women in the 1920s flappers? What exactly is couture?). By the time the symposium is over I will have heard each of the papers four times, so I've become a secondary expert on all the topics. So next time you see me, you can use the below as a guide "things I shouldn't bring up if I don't want Clara to talk incessantly."

(click to enlarge)