Cheap Copies To Set Trend For Recession Styles

There is a theory that if women's fashion exists for any reason other than vanity it is to train men to appreciate different parts of the female anatomy. Some could argue that the emphasis in eras past on the bustle, high hems and low necklines were either superfluous or perhaps too efficient at their job. At the end of 2008 western men should have developed or enhanced their appreciation of women's legs.

Legs were unquestionably the emphasized feature of the year and women wore all manner of heretofore unthinkably awful items of clothing to dutifully show them off. Easily the most ridiculous item of the year was what fashion magazines dubbed "oil slick leggings", which looked to any right-thinking outsider like leggings made out of patent leather.

Predicting what women will wear next year is trickier than usual simply because all ideas that designers and retailers have already put forward have been cast into shadow by the credit crunch. One can only feel sorry for designers such as Louis Vuitton, Prada and Balmain who based their spring/summer collection on themes such as gold, spindly high heels and mammoth shoulder pads. Such 1980s luxe looks will probably look a little off-trend against rising unemployment.

But the Marc Jacobs spring/summer collection appeared to predict the financial crash with 1920s and 30s fashions from the (previous) depression era.

Designers got away with a lot in the boom of the last decade, but it will be interesting to see how well such things last this year. It remains to be seen how many now unemployed bankers and their wives will be open to spending £800 and upwards on a pair of shoes or boots they can barely walk in.

But this is not to argue that the economy will act as a filter on fashion's excesses. The likeliest outcome will be that the most successful trends will be ones that the high street can copy cheaply.

You can bet your loyalty card that there will be a fair few versions of Yves Saint Laurent's harem trousers (recognizable to all former fans of MC Hammer) and DKNY's jumpsuits around. And you thought the worst thing about the upcoming financial crisis was potential bankruptcy.