Does the Daily Telegraph know its up from its down?

Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message. Today’s has been updated with the latest hemline flip-flop.

Daily Telegraph, 9 December 2008: “Recession pulls hemlines down”.

Daily Telegraph, 6 March 2009: “Hemlines rise during economic downturns”.

Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2009: “Falling hemlines are often assumed to indicate a crash in the markets”.

Daily Telegraph, 9 July 2010: “It’s happening again. Hemlines are falling in times of hardship”.

But perhaps it is neither up nor down?

Daily Telegraph, 5 February 2009: “the relationship between fashion and the economy is often more subtly complex than that”.

Never let it be said the Daily Telegraph doesn’t cover all the angles.

(Actual research evidence is available here.)