Researchers discovered a rule that has governed fashion for 150 years

Photo: Getty Images

“We all have encountered the idea that fashion returns – that mini-skirts or flared jeans become popular again. As mathematicians, we were interested in proving or disproving this theory. Modern advances in computer tools and arrays of digitized archives have made this possible,” says Dr. Emma Zajdela, a mathematician in applied sciences from Princeton University and lead author of the study, to BBC Science Focus.

A team of researchers, including mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, and art historians, created a database of approximately 37,000 images of women's clothing to analyze how fashion has changed over the past 150 years.

The dataset included sewing patterns dating from 1869 to 2015, as well as photos from fashion shows published in Vogue magazine from 1988–2023. These materials were used to track how key elements of women's clothing changed from decade to decade.

“We decided to quantitatively measure dresses along the vertical axis from head to toe: we measured length, waist placement, and neckline using a computer tool we developed,” Emma Zajdela explained. “This allowed us to obtain consistent, comparable indicators and track their changes over time.”

The results showed that styles do indeed cyclically gain popularity approximately every twenty years. They become popular, lose favor, and are eventually rediscovered.

Emma Zajdela notes that the mathematical model developed by the team of scientists uses the psychological concept of “visual distinctiveness” – the idea that for innovations to succeed, they must be distinctive, but not too different from what people are accustomed to.

A good example is skirt length. In the early 20th century, hemlines gradually shortened, reaching a minimum in the 1920s during the flapper era. By the mid-century, skirts began to lengthen again, but in the 1960s, mini-skirts appeared. In the 1970s, they were replaced by longer hippie-style models, after which clothing length began to decrease again.

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How hem length changed. Photo: Emma Zajdela / Daniel Abrams / sciencefocus.com

However, researchers found that this twenty-year cycle of hem length became less pronounced from the 1980s onwards, as a wider variety of skirt lengths began to emerge simultaneously.

“From the mid-1980s, fashion trends accelerated, and therefore the 20-year cycle becomes less obvious – although it is still present in the data. Instead, there is an increase in the variety of available styles,” says Emma Zajdela.

According to the researchers, this can be explained by both the acceleration of trends and the fact that society has become more accepting of different styles in fashion.

According to scientists, the discovered pattern may not be unique to fashion. Similar cycles can be observed in music, art, the popularity of dog breeds, and even in the choice of names for children.

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