The Hemline Index was first introduced at Wharton Business school in 1926 by a professor named George Taylor (via Express). The theory, essentially, was that skirts became shorter in better economic times because women could afford proper hosiery to pair with those shorter skirts. Hemlines got longer again in poor economic times so that women who could not afford hosiery could still wear their everyday clothes while appearing "proper." However, as more modern science has proven, it wasn't so much the actual prices of things that changed fashion trends like skirt lengths; it was psychological factors that go along with times of economic prosperity and economic crisis.
In other words, it wasn't necessarily that people could afford flashier fashion in good times and couldn't in bad times; it was that people generally felt certain things were and were not appropriate in times of hardship versus times of celebration. Currently, we are seeing symptoms of the same psychological ideas about fashion play out right in front of our eyes. There is a trend to simplify everything from skincare routines to makeup routines to clothing staples, whereas just a few years ago, influencer culture was all the rage, and everything from full faces of makeup to complex, multi-step skincare routines were practically expected.
Now, however, there is a push for simplicity in all forms of fashion, from the clothes we buy to how we wear them, from the makeup we wear to how we use it.
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