Over on 'that other site', someone posted a link to an article saying how women tend to cut their hair short during a downturn in the economic cycle. This is a bit like the old hem-length theory. The article cited recent examples of high-profile women cutting off their long locks and how it ties in with worries about the economy.

Firstly I think this theory is complete nonsense. Before the 20th century women tended to always have quite long hair, even if it spent most of its time tied up or under a hat or bonnet or whatever. But in the roaring 20's, during the Flapper/Charleston era, the 'bright young things' cut their hair in bobs. This was a time of great affluence among the upper class, ended by the Great Depreassion in the 30's, by which time women tended to have longer hair!
The next time women went for short hair was in the early years of the 'swinging sixties', with the Mary Quant bob - again a time of affluence - but then came the hippie era long hair which was during slightly harder economic times. Short hair came back in the early 80's as a result of Punk and of yuppism.

I like long haired women so it would be a pity to see it go out of fashion.

Maybe we could try to find a correlation between facial hair on men and the economy!

Never mind hair lengths....I think that if men nose-picking on the train en route to work in the morning is anything to go by then we're stuffed. Strange that the nose pickers feel that people don't notice. Ho hum.

I suppose after the 60s, having hair cut dramatically short became of statement of change/distress/rebellion/going bonkers - which it possibly wasn't previously.

There is an odd stat from the hairdressing industry about the effects of national 'disasters'. Following Diana's death and again, after 9/11, there was a collapse in trade that lasted almost precisely two weeks. The 'recovery' day was, on both occasions, the Saturday two weeks later, when, it seems, people said 'Ok, back to normal, and suddenly poured in. The result in my salon was a record-breaking day that I doubt can possibly be matched.

'Fraid I can't add to the body of knowledge on nose-picking correlation to GDP growth

My favorite "something and hair lenght" bit is in Red Dwarf, Series I or II.

Rimmer: "All wars in history are won by the side with the shorter hair" ...
then he gives a few examples, and closes with ...
"Vietnam - crew-cuts both sides - no score draw."

Now I know why Kojak always got the bad guys.

So has the journo got it the wrong way around? I could well believe that women grow their hair long come a recession - if it saves going to the hairdressers so often, and therefore saves money - people with shorter hair require regular cutting to keep the shape/style, but if you've got long hair, you can tie it back etc, disguising the fact you haven't been to the hairdressers in a while... I say this as someone who cuts their own hair, so it's merely speculation, but it would make sense - economically anyway.

I agree.

If we could get our hands on the information, I think we would see an increase in sales on home haircare stuff too.

Clippers and hair colouring kits must be flying off the shelves. I should think we are going to see a resurgence of the mobile hairdressers doing cheap cuts at home too.

This is the best laugh all credit crunch. Snorting is on the rise also. Grown, well dressed men.