Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 19, 1992 TAG: 9201170058
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: John Levin
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
TOUGH TO TELL IF DRESSING IS ANY INDICATOR
People who watch hemlines, neckties and similar unofficial barometers of the economy are getting mixed signals these days. But then the official indicators aren't providing many clear signs either.As spring fashions move out of storerooms and onto the front racks, retailers often are a good gauge of what's ahead in terms of consumer confidence. And retail sales are among the most powerful engines of America's economy.
The old adage is that men who turn conservative in recessions flaunt that concern by wearing more colorful neckties. So we're watching for a return to neat patterns, regular stripes and muted colors as a signal of recovery. Yet the flamboyant flowery patterns and paisleys still are abundant.
And conventional wisdom says women wear shorter skirts in downturns and lower their hemlines in periods of economic expansion, said Diana Vaughan, who operates Roanoke's E.I. Randle and Jasmine/Randle in Lynchburg.
Another commonly held but contradictory belief is that hemlines rise with the stock market, said Virginia ECONOMY JOHN LEVIN Tech marketing Professor John Mentzer. But Wall Street rallies often are forerunners of prosperity in other sectors by six months or longer.
"A lot of how you act in recession and recovery is a psychological phenomenon," he said. "If you feel good about the future, you tend to be more impractical. But if recession is getting worse, people buy what's going to stay in style."
American women, however, have defied earlier conventions. For the past several years they've refused to be led by designers on the topic of hemlines.
"A woman today has her own opinion about skirt length, and she's not thinking about the economy when she buys a shirt," Vaughan said. "The modern woman refuses to be dictated to" by designers who try to make her think her wardrobe's out of style because of a few inches of fabric.
Rather, Vaughan said her customers have become more concerned about the value of what they buy, that it will be in style longer and, therefore, more useful.
So the Randle stores are stocking skirts of various lengths.
Men, too, are "buying value and being extremely cautious about what they buy," said Tom Hudson, manager of downtown Roanoke's Mitchell's men's store.
"We're in a market when suits are darker and more conservative and that means the fellows are being more conservative," he said.
Although double-breasted jackets and big-shoulder Italian-cut suits suggest a degree of optimism, Hudson said those models still account for only 10 to 15 percent of Mitchell's inventory for spring.
It's as if Americans sense this is no time to break the conservative image, said John Molloy, a New Jersey sales consultant best known for the "Dress for Success" and "Live for Success" books he wrote a decade ago.
Molloy still is advising clients to dress conservatively. But rather than suggesting that a business executive spend at least $1,500 a year on career clothing, Molloy now says, "Don't spend unless you have it to spend.
"My advice is always the same," he said in a recent interview. "Buy traditional colors and patterns guaranteed not to go out of style."
Dress and image, however, are more important in bad times, he said. "If you're looking for a job, it's a buyer's market where interviewers expect more and try to eliminate you for anything short of perfection." A cowlick, lipstick that's too bright or shoes with less than a spit shine seem to eliminate candidates even before the talking starts, Molloy said.
In recession, managers are more likely to tell subordinates when they don't like their style of dress and companies are growing tougher about enforcing dress codes, even when they're irrational or actually hamper job performance, Molloy said.
While it's difficult to prove that dress affects job performance, Molloy said, "It can be proven that a lax dress code affects productivity in an office." If an office looks like business, people will work harder. "How people dress is part of the environment," he said.
Knowing that, would Diana Vaughan risk her business on a store full of miniskirts?
Not likely. "I've geared my buying to be more serious," she said.
"If I had a store full of short skirts today, I'd feel I was in trouble," Vaughan said. "But if I'd feel I'm not up with the trends if I had a store full of nothing but long skirts."
The economic barometers say the storm hasn't passed.
John Levin is executive business editor of the Roanoke Times & World-News.