Few people are better positioned to see just how ugly this recession has become than Rachel Julien and Ashley Edwards. Are they economists? Unemployment counselors? Food pantry workers? No. They’re sales associates at a kiosk in the Shops at the Prudential Center, and with thousands of people streaming by their stand daily, they can report with some authority that, even by New England-in-winter standards, Bostonians look terrible.
“People look schlumpy,” Julien said as she sat at her perch recently, the un-beautiful people trudging by. Julien sees hair pulled carelessly into ponytails, old sweatpants instead of designer jeans, dull accessories.
“They have no style.” Her co-worker agreed: “It is blah,” said Edwards, 20.
How blah? Let us count the ways: Our clothing and our faces have become more wrinkled as we forgo dry cleaning and Botox, respectively (according to statistics from the Dry Cleaning and Laundry Institute, and lower fourth-quarter earnings reported by Allergan, Botox’s maker). Our blond highlights are but a memory and our roots a reality, as we stretch the time between visits to the hair salon (according to the National Cosmetology Association). Don’t look at our nails or our eyebrows, as we’re doing those on our own now, or our teeth, for that matter, as we put off bleaching to pay for non-elective procedures (according to American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry).
And let’s not talk about our thighs. Emotional eating is likely rising (says Eileen Kennedy, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University). Which, of course, poses the question: Does this recession make me look fat?
THE TRUTH IS, PRESIDENT OBAMA — who’s brought a more casual dress code to the White House – didn’t go far enough earlier this month, when he said that a failure to act on the stimulus package “could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.”
Could turn? It already has: US sales of prestige makeup dropped 3.3 percent in 2008 from 2007, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm. And in October, the group reported that even lipstick sales were falling. What’s next? The sky?
Actually, our moods, says Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist at Golden Gate University: “Now that folks are committed to sale-((only)) shopping, the anticipation of a new season will be diminished,” she wrote in an e-mail. “For all time, there’s been a thrill in picking out something new and springy in anticipation of the end of winter. If everyone’s waiting for the sales, that bit of mental preparation and the thrill of anticipation is a casualty of the times.”
Gone, too, is the joy of competitive dressing and grooming.
“I’m not changing my earrings as much because no one else is,” Julien, the sales associate, said, gesturing to her plain hoops. “You don’t feel the need to.” But if the recession has a silver lining, it’s this: The bar on appearance has been lowered.
“There is something comforting about old clothing, but we’ve never had permission to wear it before,” said Ellen Brown, a senior associate with Hammond GMAC Real Estate, who said dressing up had gotten out of control before the economy crashed. “It was excessive.”
For Beth Kaufman, 40, a textbook editor from Brookline, the global economic meltdown translates into less pressure to color the gray streak in her hair. “People are more forgiving now,” she said. “I’ve been putting off doing it because everyone else is.”
Indeed, skipping the lengthy hair-dying sessions at the salon can be freeing, says Anne Kreamer, author of “Going Gray.” “If people view it as an opportunity, as opposed to something you have to do out of fear, it can be a liberating thing for everyone.” She’s not the only one longing for a grooming non-proliferation pact.
Nadine Haobsh, author of “Confessions of a Beauty Addict,” also sees the schlepification of America as a relief: “I’m hopeful this is a national cleanse. Over the past decade we’ve become so appearance focused.
You look at Paris Hilton and all the reality TV stars and it’s literally about using what you look like.” But the recession is changing that, she said.
“I think we’re moving back to this more organic state of appearance.” Just as economists look to lessons learned during the Great Depression for help in the current situation, so too can fashionistas. Amelia Rauser, associate professor of art history at Franklin & Marshall College, reports that in the 1930s, women unraveled sweaters and used the yarn to knit something new (the Depression-era version of selling clothing in a consignment store to fund new purchases).
“One way people in the Depression coped with not having much extra cash for grooming was hats,” she added. “It takes a lot of money to maintain the ‘natural look’ we have today – blow outs, highlights, skilled haircuts.
In the ’30s, women just slicked their hair back and wore a hat.” But Rauser doesn’t expect a comeback. “We’re too committed to casual dressing today, and too afraid of looking like we’re trying too hard.” But if they did, they would “cover up a lot of sins: bad hair days, grown-out cuts, roots showing- it might even distract from those crow’s feet and forehead wrinkles as a result of less Botox.” As the economy’s spiral continues to suck our looks down with it, few are better credentialed than Congressman Barney Frank – chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and the poster rep for the rumpled look – to offer solace to those stressing about our appearance. He’s been making a go of what could be called “recession chic” for decades. His 1976 campaign poster, he reminded a reporter, read: “Neatness isn’t everything.
Re-elect Barney.” “As in other things,” Frank told us, “society may be catching up to me.” Sidebar: (Too) casual corner It’s not just the guy next to you at the T station who’s looking dumpy these days. Schlump has become de rigueur on screens large and small, and among celebrity types who can surely afford to do better. Is it a reflection of the rocky economic times? Are even the denizens of Us magazine too harried (or lazy) to brush their hair right now? Read on and decide for yourself.
– HAYLEY KAUFMAN We all know that Tina Fey can clean up nice, but as Liz Lemon on “30 Rock,” the actress looks as if she raided an Old Navy four years ago and hasn’t updated her wardrobe since. Add to that the troublesome hair – not quite frizzy, not quite curly, sometimes strangely limp – and she’s nothing if not a style-challenged case study for “What Not to Wear.” And yet she’s become America’s geeky sweetheart. Why? Because in her schlumpiness, she’s just like us.
Jessica Biel may be one of the most beautiful women in film right now, but she’s the poster child of the new schlump. On the arm of her natty beau Justin Timberlake, she frequently looks like she just rolled out of bed, wearing shapeless maxi dresses, or sad hoodies and scarves. Her appearance at the Oscars is a case in point. Her cream-colored gown was pretty enough, but that hair! Mussed, stringy, and bedraggled. Where’s the Illusionist when she needs him? Clive Owen often looks vaguely unwashed on film, as if he’s so focused on his characters that he’s forgotten all about hygiene. In the new film “The International,” the actor really lets himself go. The hair’s askew, the face, unshaven, and his trench coat needs a round or two at the dry cleaner. Why so unkempt? Serious problems with a multi-national financial institution. In related news, Citibank CEO Vikram Pandit still appears to be showering regularly.
Call them Beanie Babies: the growing contingent of men, and some women, who pull a knit cap over their heads and pronounce themselves ready to face the world. Philip Seymour Hoffman wore one, ridiculously, to the Academy Awards earlier this week. Who didn’t? “Twilight” hottie Robert Pattinson, who deigned to wash his luscious locks for the event. Pattinson has been open about how much he hates to shampoo, and frequently sports a snood over his greasy mop.
Hannah Montana wouldn’t be caught dead noodling around LA in velour track pants and bed head. But tween queen Miley Cyrus has no such compunction.
Perhaps she’s worried about the new stimulus plan – and the cost of Clearasil.
