Skirt length and the state of the economy

When economists have too much spare time on their hands, you end up with research papers like this one from 2010, by Marjolein van Baardwijk and Philip Hans Franses (Erasmus University Rotterdam), on the relationship between hemlines and the state of the economy:

In 1926 an economist called George Taylor introduced a “theory” that is called the hemline index. This theory says that hemlines on women’s dresses fluctuate with the economy, measured by stock prices or gross domestic product. When the economy is flourishing, hemlines increase, meaning one would see more miniskirts, and when the economic situation is deteriorating the hemlines drop, perhaps even to the floor...

The main findings are that the hemline increases over the years, with a non-linear trending pattern, and that the economy leads the hemline with about 3 to 4 years.

So, when the economy is in an expansionary phase (or rather, when the economy was expansionary three or four years previously), hemlines move upwards and there are shorter skirts. And, when the economy is in a recession (three or four years previously), hemlines move downwards and there are longer skirts.

The authors obviously didn't have a lot of time on their hands, because the paper is only a few pages long (excluding the figures and tables). Moreover, their choices of analysis techniques, and the way they manipulate the data in some quite idiosyncratic ways, suggest that this is an exercise in 'torturing the data until it confesses' (paraphrasing a famous quote from Ronald Coase).

It raises an important question though: how is skirt length responding to the current period of secular stagnation?