Do we dress better when the economy is tanking?
The seventies, the nineties and now the twenty-twenties are proving ripe for fashions that stand the test of time. Yet they also proved economically trying. Are the two things linked?
As I cycled home from work yesterday, I came across something odd. It was a teenage girl, only she was well groomed, impeccably dressed and wore her hair in a bob. Are teenagers not meant to look spotty and out of place, I wondered? As London Fashion Week returns to the city this week, has sartorial fever finally gripped our adolescents?
Not quite. Today’s young ’uns are empirically more elegant than we were — a result, some say, of TikTok, where the algorithm subsumes sartorially unfriendly cultures to the benefit of a safer, dominant aesthetic. It holds up, but I would like to propose another theory. Trends tend to work in 30-year cycles. Thirty years ago was 1996. Whereas I was stuck with mod haircuts and skinny jeans at the age of 15, 30 years on from 1983, today’s teenagers are donning camisoles, suede jackets and slacks à la Kate Moss and Johnny Depp. QED.
The dress that launched a thousand ships: Elizabeth Hurley and Hugh Grant cut a swish figure at the premiere for 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (1994).
2026 has inspired comparisons to 1976 (hot summer, bleak economy) and 1999 (stock-market exuberance fuelled by only a handful of tech companies). These were also years remembered for the majesty of their fashion: think Cher in suedes and feathered bodysuits by the dearly departed Bob Mackie, or Gwyneth Paltrow in that Donna Karen ensemble. Fashion is only free to go off the rails when the economy is soaring, because people will buy it anyway. The 1980s, fittingly, is still known as the decade that style forgot. Where The City saw a Big Bang, most wardrobes faced a Big Bust.
In a more uncertain climate, customers are forced to become more discerning. Designers, for their part, are expected to take fewer risks. A cynic might call this boring — the death of creativity — but history suggests otherwise. Designers are often at their best when finding freedom within constraint.
Reining in excess allows the details to take centre-stage (see Tom Ford’s tenure at Gucci, 1994–2004), a commercially savvy idea in an era where the snapshots of an outfit — think Chanel’s recent barefoot sandals — go viral more easily than the overall ensemble. Reuse and timelessness also become more important, as they ought to. In perhaps the only upshot of economic downturn, this weekend’s collections are expected to be a triumph.
This feature originally appeared in the September 16, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
