Here are some fashion trends that have historically reflected economic downturns and are now reappearing in our wardrobes.

In the early 1930s, when the Great Depression took hold, fashion became more practical, and quietly stepped away from glamour. Then, a few decades later, during the oil crisis of the 1970s, something similar happened when people turned to earthy tones, longer skirts, and a more relaxed boho style. And if we look at the recession of 2008, when the world faced another major financial crash, fashion responded yet again with similar trends where loud logos faded, minimalism took over, and people started choosing basics that felt more sensible.

These shifts in style may seem like changing tastes on the surface, but they follow a pattern and that’s no mere coincidence. Fashion, though often seen as frivolous or detached from reality, has always mirrored the social and economic pulse of its time, shifting subtly—or sometimes drastically—in response to the pressures people face. Recession, with its huge impact on spending habits and consumer mindset, has a way of quietly shaping the clothes we wear, the trends we follow, and the statements we choose to make through style. This article explores the fascinating ways in which economic downturns have consistently left their mark on the fashion industry, revealing how style adapts when society is forced to rethink its priorities.

Minimalism and Quiet Luxury

Throughout history, economic downturns have often prompted a return to minimalist fashion, and 2025 is no exception. As recessionary pressures mount, consumers are increasingly drawn to quiet luxury, an aesthetic defined by clean lines, muted tones such as beige, black, and off-white, and logo-free designs that convey sophistication with subtlety rather than flash. This preference stems not only from a desire for elegance but also from practicality: high-quality, versatile pieces offer greater value when budgets are tighter.
This trend isn’t new. After the 2008 financial crisis, Phoebe Philo’s work at Celine became emblematic of the minimalist movement, resonating with audiences seeking calm and refinement in uncertain times. Fast-forward to today, and shows like Succession have reintroduced the concept of quiet luxury into the cultural conversation, highlighting understated affluence over flashy displays of wealth. In 2025, this growing preference also speaks to a broader societal shift that is valuing longevity, subtlety, and authenticity over rapid consumption and conspicuous branding.

Longer Hemlines (The Hemline Index)

The “hemline index” is a theory suggesting that skirt lengths tend to fall during tough economic times and once again, it appears relevant. Maxi and midi skirts have seen a massive resurgence. Historically, longer hemlines during downturns, such as during the Great Depression and post-2008, reflected a shift toward modesty and practicality. Covered silhouettes offered more versatility and durability, catering to a mood of caution and restraint. While it’s important to note that fashion doesn’t follow the hemline theory religiously (for    instance, the prosperous 1950s also favored longer skirts), the broader pattern remains: in times of economic hardship, consumers gravitate toward styles that feel stable, sensible, and enduring.

Indie Sleaze and Nostalgic Revivals

At the other end of the style spectrum, the gritty, chaotic aesthetic of early-2000s “indie sleaze” has roared back to life. Characterized by skinny jeans, distressed layers, slip dresses, messy eyeliner, and an overall DIY spirit, indie sleaze appeals to those longing for a less polished, more rebellious era.
During past downturns, notably post-2008, similar nostalgic trends offered emotional refuge, allowing people to romanticize periods of past turbulence as simpler or freer times. In 2025, cultural moments like Lady Gaga’s punk-era revival in Mayhem have propelled this style back into the spotlight. Indie sleaze’s appeal lies not just in nostalgia but in its affordability and individualism, providing a low-cost way to express personal style amid broader economic anxiety.

Underconsumption-Core and Thrifting

Another major behavioral shift in 2025 is the rise of “underconsumption-core” which is a conscious effort to minimize buying, embrace secondhand shopping, and find new ways to reuse and repurpose existing wardrobes. Social media platforms have become hubs for thrift hauls, “shop your closet” challenges, and DIY upcycling tips.
This trend harks back to post-2008, when resale platforms like Depop and Poshmark flourished. Today’s version is even more value-driven and sustainability-focused, reflecting growing awareness of both economic and environmental crises. Underconsumption-core speaks to a new ethos: style doesn’t have to come at the cost of the planet or one’s wallet. Instead, creativity, resourcefulness, and personal storytelling become the real markers of fashion credibility.

Peplum Tops

Peplum tops, featuring a distinctive flared ruffle at the waist, are another silhouette making a comeback in 2025. Historically, peplums have emerged during or after economic crises, giving a subtle flourish in otherwise streamlined wardrobes. Christian Dior’s iconic New Look post-World War II, with its cinched waists and voluminous skirts, embodied a similar balance between optimism and austerity. Following the 2008 financial crisis, peplum tops once again found favor for their ability to add flair without extravagance. Today, designers like Ashlynn Park are reintroducing them with modern updates like cleaner cuts, lighter fabrics, and a focus on functionality. Their resurgence signals cautious optimism: consumers are ready for a bit of fun in their fashion choices but still value practicality and versatility over flamboyant splurges.

Recession Blonde (and Low-Maintenance Beauty)

The idea of “recession blonde” was coined on TikTok and it reflects the broader beauty shift toward low-maintenance routines in tight economies. Rather than frequent salon visits to maintain a perfect platinum hue, consumers are embracing darker roots, more natural shades, and cost-effective color treatments like glosses.
This mirrors a broader pattern seen after the 2008 crash, when consumers pared back spending on professional beauty services. In 2025, stylists are seeing a surge in requests for “lived-in” color and treatments that extend the time between appointments. It’s a subtle but telling sign of how recessions reshape beauty norms, prioritizing authenticity and affordability over constant upkeep.

Conservative Silhouettes and Muted Colors

Along with longer hemlines, conservative silhouettes including high necklines, long sleeves, and relaxed, layered fits are regaining ground in 2025. Colors, too, are shifting toward muted, earthy palettes like warm browns, charcoal grays, olive greens, and soft neutrals. This isn’t purely aesthetic. Practicality underpins the trend. Muted, conservative pieces tend to mix and match easily, transition across seasons, and outlast fleeting fads, offering greater long-term value. In previous recessions such as the post-1929 crash and post-2008 recovery,  similar trends emerged, reflecting a societal mood of prudence and introspection.

Business Casual and Corporate-Inspired Looks

Economic uncertainty also influences how we dress for work and beyond. During recessions, there’s often a resurgence of business casual and corporate-inspired looks, where tailored blazers, wide-leg slacks, crisp shirts, and structured dresses dominate. Dubbed “officecore,” this trend blends professional polish with enough versatility to transition seamlessly from boardrooms to brunches. The early 2010s, following the Great Recession, saw a similar phenomenon, with young adults embracing sharp corporate styles even in nightlife settings. In 2025, designers like Stella McCartney and Peter Do are reviving this spirit but with a twist: reimagining traditional suiting with relaxed cuts, gender-fluid tailoring, and unexpected fabric choices. Officecore today is less about rigid formality and more about smart, adaptable dressing — reflecting a world where professional and personal lives blur, and consumers seek clothing that maximizes both style and function.

High Heels (The High Heel Index)

The so-called “high heel index” is a theory that heel heights rise during the initial stages of economic downturns remains a fascinating, if imperfect, indicator. In the early months of recessions, bold fashion statements, including dramatic heels, sometimes flourish as acts of sartorial defiance or escapism. This was observed at the onset of the Great Depression, though as hardships deepened, comfort and pragmatism took hold.

Also Read: The Questionable Use of the Idea of Feminism as a Marketing Ploy Across History

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Blue Origin’s all-female spaceflight was hailed as a feminist milestone but many saw it as a luxury spectacle masked as empowerment. It highlights how, numerous times in history, feminism has been co-opted to sell privilege rather than drive structural progress.

On April 14, 2025, Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket launched its NS-31 mission, carrying an all-female crew into suborbital space for an 11-minute flight. Marketed as a historic milestone for gender representation as the first all-woman space crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s 1963 solo flight, the mission was celebrated by its organizers and crew as a feminist triumph. However, the mission’s commercial nature, high cost, and celebrity-heavy roster have ignited a firestorm of criticism, exposing how the word “feminist” has been used in a misleading way to cloak privilege and spectacle in the guise of progress. The crew was a high-profile mix: Media personality Lauren Sánchez,, led the charge, joined by pop star Katy Perry, CBS Mornings host Gayle King, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. The automated flight, which crossed the Kármán line at 62 miles above Earth, offered a few minutes of weightlessness and stunning views before safely landing in West Texas. Blue Origin touted the mission as a step toward inclusivity in space exploration, with crew members like Sánchez and Bowe emphasizing its potential to inspire women and minorities in STEM fields.

A Feminist Milestone or a Misstep?

At first glance, an all-female space crew seems like a clear win for feminism—a field historically dominated by men. Yet, the mission’s execution and framing have led many to question whether it really advanced the cause of women or simply co-opted the feminist label for publicity. The word “feminist” has been used in a misleading way here, slapped onto a venture that critics argue prioritized elite access over systemic change.

The mission’s high cost which reportedly requiring a $150,000 deposit per person reflects its exclusivity. Only those with significant wealth or connections could afford such an experience. This sparked accusations of elitism, with figures like Emily Ratajkowski, Olivia Wilde, and Amy Schumer slamming the flight as a tone-deaf display of privilege amid global crises like poverty and climate change. Ratajkowski called it “beyond parody,” arguing it failed to represent meaningful progress for women. NS-31’s crew, while diverse in some respects, leaned heavily on high-profile figures whose participation felt more performative than transformative. Tagging this as a feminist victory risks diluting the term, equating a brief, costly joyride with the hard-fought battles for gender equity in education, workplaces, or even NASA’s astronaut corps.

Blue Origin and the crew emphasized the mission’s scientific contributions, particularly Amanda Nguyen’s experiments testing NASA spacesuit fabric and an electric chip for breast cancer detection. These efforts, while commendable, were overshadowed by the flight’s broader framing as a celebrity spectacle. The inclusion of figures like Katy Perry, whose mid-flight performance of “What a Wonderful World” was widely mocked, further undermined the mission’s credibility.  

The mission’s environmental impact drew significant scrutiny. Private spaceflight, including Blue Origin’s New Shepard, contributes to carbon emissions and resource use at a time when climate change is a pressing global issue. Ethically, the mission raised questions about the commercialization of space and the “astronaut” title. By branding wealthy passengers as trailblazers, Blue Origin risks trivializing the rigorous training and contributions of professional astronauts who undertake months-long missions with tangible scientific goals. The NS-31 crew’s brief flight, by contrast, felt like a luxury experience, not a feminist or scientific breakthrough. 

Historical and Analogous Instances Where “Feminist” Was Used to Market Questionable Agendas

The misuse of feminist ideals to market products or agendas that don’t genuinely advance gender equity is not a new phenomenon. Historically, corporations and campaigns have co-opted the language of women’s liberation to sell products or ideas that, in hindsight, were harmful or exploitative. 

Tobacco Industry’s “Torches of Freedom” Campaign

In the 1920s, cigarette companies like Lucky Strike and Philip Morris sought to expand their market by targeting women, who faced social taboos against smoking. The American Tobacco Company, under the guidance of public relations pioneer Edward Bernays, launched a campaign that framed cigarette smoking as a feminist act of rebellion against patriarchal norms. In 1929, Bernays orchestrated the infamous “Torches of Freedom” stunt during New York City’s Easter Sunday Parade. He hired debutantes to march as suffragists, publicly lighting cigarettes as symbols of liberation, with the press primed to cover the event as a bold feminist statement.

The campaign was a masterclass in manipulation. The feminist label was exploited to equate smoking with women’s suffrage and autonomy, despite the known health risks of tobacco, which were already suspected by medical professionals at the time. By the 1930s, smoking rates among women soared particularly as tobacco companies continued targeting them with “slimmer” cigarette brands like Virginia Slims in the 1960s.

This campaign’s legacy is a reminder of how feminist ideals can be hijacked for profit. It didn’t advance women’s rights but instead addicted generations to a deadly product, all under the guise of empowerment. The “Torches of Freedom” remains a textbook case of feminism being co-opted to sell harm. 

Household Appliances as “Liberation” Tools 

Post-World War II, the rise of consumer culture saw appliance manufacturers like General Electric and Westinghouse market household goods—washing machines, vacuum cleaners, electric stoves—as feminist breakthroughs. Advertisements proclaimed these products would “free” women from the drudgery of housework, granting them time for personal fulfillment. In reality, these campaigns reinforced traditional gender roles. The “liberation” promised by appliances often trapped women in the domestic sphere, as societal expectations shifted to demand even higher standards of cleanliness and homemaking. Many argue that these technologies increased women’s workloads by raising expectations for perfect households, while men were rarely encouraged to share domestic labor. Moreover, the high cost of appliances meant only middle- and upper-class women could afford them, excluding working-class and minority women from this so-called feminist progress.

Labeling these products as feminist tools was a marketing ploy to boost sales, not a genuine effort to challenge systemic inequalities like unequal division of labor or women’s exclusion from the workforce. 

Marketing of Beauty Products in the mid-20th century

In the mid-20th century, cosmetics and beauty industries, led by brands like Revlon, Avon, and Clairol, capitalized on feminist rhetoric to sell products that promised to empower women through appearance. Advertisements framed makeup, hair dye, and skincare as tools for self-expression and confidence, aligning with the era’s emerging discussions of women’s agency. Clairol’s 1957 campaign for its “Does she… or doesn’t she?” hair dye, for example, suggested that coloring one’s hair was a bold, feminist choice to defy aging and societal judgment, with the tagline implying secrecy and personal power. However, these campaigns often reinforced restrictive beauty standards that pressured women to conform to idealized notions of femininity.

The “feminist” framing ignored how these products were sold as necessities to “fix” perceived flaws, adding to insecurity rather than empowerment. By branding beauty products as feminist, these companies profited from women’s insecurities while sidestepping the structural barriers—like workplace discrimination or lack of political representation—that true feminism sought to address. 

Alcohol Marketing as Women’s “Freedom” 

In the wake of second-wave feminism, alcohol companies began targeting women with campaigns that framed drinking as a feminist act of equality. Brands launched ads in the 1970s and 1980s showing women in professional settings—sipping cocktails at bars or hosting parties—suggesting that drinking was a way to claim the social freedoms traditionally reserved for men. 

These campaigns co-opted feminist language to normalize alcohol consumption among women, ignoring the health risks of increased drinking, including liver disease and addiction, which rose among women during this period. The “feminist” framing also glossed over how these ads often sexualized women, portraying them as liberated only when appealing to male gazes. Like the cigarette campaigns decades earlier, this misuse of feminism prioritized corporate profits over women’s well-being, using empowerment as a veneer for exploitation.

The Blue Origin NS-31 mission, with its “feminist” branding of an exclusive spaceflight, echoes a long history of exploiting feminist ideals for questionable ends. Feminism is often used as a shiny label to sell things that don’t really help women. Time and again, the idea of “empowerment” gets twisted to push products or experiences that only benefit a few, usually the wealthy. These moves look like progress but often just keep old problems in place. These historical missteps tell us about the need to scrutinize modern claims of feminism, ensuring the term isn’t reduced to a marketing ploy but remains a call for systemic change that uplifts all, not just those who can afford the spotlight.

This week, we witnessed major fashion milestones and electric festivals that kept everyone buzzing. Here are the highlights you can’t miss. 

Coachella 2025: A Star-Studded Weekend

Coachella 2025 was an unforgettable experience, packed with electrifying performances and surprising moments that fans won’t soon forget. Headliners like Lady Gaga, Green Day, and Travis Scott brought their A-game to the stage. Lady Gaga wowed the crowd with a visually stunning performance that included both her iconic hits and fresh material. Green Day made their Coachella debut, delivering a high-energy set that had everyone rocking out. Travis Scott’s performance drew a massive crowd, though it got some mixed reviews, with fans calling it a bit slow in parts. Other performances that stood out included Megan Thee Stallion, whose power-packed set got everyone hyped, and Missy Elliott, who brought her signature style and futuristic flair. Blackpink’s Lisa and Jennie also had solo sets that gave fans a chance to see them shine as individuals. In a surprising twist, Bernie Sanders made an appearance during Clairo’s set, blending politics with music in a way no one expected. And for a fun throwback, Yo Gabba Gabba! made a surprise comeback with Flavor Flav, reminding everyone of their childhood favorites.

Ananya Panday Becomes Chanel’s First Indian Brand Ambassador

French luxury fashion house Chanel announced Bollywood actor Ananya Panday as its first-ever brand ambassador from India. The announcement follows her recent appearance at Chanel’s Spring/Summer 2025 show in Paris.

Ralph Lauren Brings Edwardian Flair to Tribeca for Fall 2025

Ralph Lauren switched things up for his Fall 2025 show, stepping away from his typical glitzy night showcases to unveil a more refined, Edwardian-inspired collection in broad daylight. The presentation took place at the newly opened Jack Shainman Gallery in Tribeca and focused solely on his signature luxe womenswear. With a front row packed with familiar faces like Anne Hathaway, Sadie Sink, and Naomi Watts, the show felt both intimate and starry. 

YouTube’s ‘Hype’ Feature Offers Boost for Emerging Creators

YouTube’s Hype, introduced last year, gives lesser-known creators a new way to gain visibility. Viewers can tap a ‘Hype’ button on eligible videos they think deserve more attention. These videos then appear on a dedicated Hype leaderboard, offering a spotlight driven by the community rather than the algorithm. Unlike traditional ranking systems, Hype doesn’t impact search results, making it a separate space for discovery based purely on viewer support.

Nationwide Protests Erupt Across the US Against Trump’s Leadership Amid ‘Hands Off’ Movement

People across the United States took to the streets in all 50 states, rallying under the banner of the “Hands Off” movement to voice strong opposition to what they see as President Donald Trump’s growing authoritarianism and billionaire-fueled agenda. The nationwide protests were backed by more than 150 progressive organizations, including groups like MoveOn, Indivisible, and a wide range of advocates focused on civil rights, gender equality, veterans’ issues, labor rights, climate justice, and LGBTQ+ protections. The coordinated demonstrations reflected a collective outcry against what organizers called a dangerous overreach of power.

Also Read: Vivienne Westwood Makes Historic India Debut at the Gateway of India

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