Lower hemlines = support for Bush?

Not necessarily.

Via Intellectual Defenestration: The Great Hollywood Cover-up [-USA Today].

“There’s a new definition of what looks sexy and what looks appropriate,” Raffin says. “There’s a new sophistication” that young women “really have not been exposed to, no pun intended.

“There’s very little left to show anyway. Everything has been revealed.”

The conservative thread weaving through pop culture is not only indicative of fashion’s fickleness. It’s a sign of the general zeitgeist, Rubenstein says.

“It’s not a happy time in this world,” he says. “What those ’50s-inspired clothes represent is the illusion of times being calmer.”

Fashion and war have always gone hand-in-hand. Look at the short skirts and wide shoulders of the 1940s and WWII, when women were pulling Rosie the Riveter shifts down at the local factory and enjoying more prestige and freedom than they had in a long time. Contrast it with the the Donna Reed look of the 1950s — wide fluffy skirts, buttoned up tops — reminiscent, actually, of the antebellum South. And there was a time after Vietnam and before the Esprit neon-pink days of the 1980s when women’s fashion returned, albeit briefly, to soft frills.

Nowadays, with the war in Iraq continuing [despite Presidential claims to the contrary], it could be argued that America is seeking a nostalgia for “happier” days.

Or perhaps by turning the current culture wars into a fashionable New Look [Dior ca. 1951, anyone?] designers and celebrities are signalling their acceptance of the president’s regime.

Or perhaps we are all tired of glittery tube tops and jeans that barely clear the crack in your behindside. I confess I was pining for a vintage shirtdress on Monday, and wondering where I could find one ‘round town [Anybody have a suggestion?].

At any rate, I definitely know some women who would welcome a return to lower hemlines [opposite of these]. A new sophistication would be welcome.

And which fashion dictate is more feminist? The skimpy one or the retro one? Cue “Madonna v. Whore” debate. And let’s not forget the cultural impression one may unknowingly give off by returning to a pre-Women’s Lib couture — that we have no problem going back to a time when women barely had the right to vote, much less control their own reproduction, earn equal wages or enjoy any other rights the first and second wave earned for us.

But personally, I’m not one for ultra skimpy anyway, unless I’m trying to get a tan. I can’t pull off the tube tops [they have a tendency to fall down; go figure]. I don’t bare my belly. In fact, I didn’t even wear shorts from 1998-2001. But that was before I realized that it’s way cooler to show off the ugly scars on my legs [from the Rollerblading tooth-losing debacle] than it was to pretend they weren’t there.

If I could find the perfect fluffy 1950s skirt or shirtdress [and shoes to go with; still looking for my perfect Mary Janes] I think I’d wear it. I’ve got the Bobby Sue bangs-and-ponytail thing down, at any rate.

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