According to Veblen: ‘This requirement of novelty is the underlying principle of the whole difficult and interesting domain of fashion. Fashion does not demand continual flux and change simply because that way of doing is foolish; flux and change and novelty are demanded by the central principle of dress – conspicuous waste. Veblen states that it is not sufficient to have money and power in order to achieve social standing: it also has to be visible. It is a question of showing what social status one has, for example via conspicuous consumption.We attempt to outdo others who belong to the same social class as ourselves and attempt to gain the same level as the class above us by imitating them.There are, in other words, two principles that are operative: differentiation inwards towards our own class, and imitation of the class above. Veblen claims that a player will not normally have the principle of conspicuous consumption as an explicit motive, and broadly speaking only be taken up with living as he or she feels is appropriate for a person of that particular social status. It is no exaggeration to say that Veblen is critical of such a course of action. He feels, among other things, that it causes us to confuse economic and aesthetic worth,and furthermore that fashionable apparel by nature is directly ugly, even though people are induced to believe that it is beautiful. Veblen places simplicity and functionality as a norm, believing that everything that deviates from this is ugly and irrational, and therefore something that needs an explanation.
Like Veblen, Georg Simmel was no optimist regarding the future, but even so there is no doubt that he finds more of value in his own age that Veblen did. Simmel’s theory is considerably more sophisticated than Veblen’s. For him, it is not just a question of marking social status but of balancing opposing human needs and inclinations, such as individuality and conformity, freedom and independence. Viewed thus, fashion becomes a unique phenomenon where ‘all opposing main tendencies in the soul are represented. Simmel