ABSTRACT
The major deficiencies in the conventional sociological treatment are easily noted – a failure to observe and appreciate the wide range of operation of fashion; a false assumption that fashion has only trivial or peripheral significance. Similar to scholars in general who have shown some concern with the topic, sociologists are disposed to identify fashion exclusively or primarily with the area of costume and adornment. On the individual side, the adoption of what is fashionable is by and large a very calculating act. As history shows abundantly, in the competitive process fashion readily ignores persons with the highest prestige and, indeed, by-passes acknowledged ‘leaders’ time after time. Fashion appears much more as a collective groping for the proximate future than a channeled movement laid down by prestigeful figures. The prestige of elite groups, in place of setting the direction of the fashion movement is effective only to the extent to which they are recognized as representing and portraying the movement.
