“The practical.” Fashion’s latest conquest

Earlier descriptions of the expansion of fashion often centered on new areas of content such as first names, or scientific approaches. Here sociologists will see how an old area of fashion activity receives new treatment. The subject area is food, not in respect to vogue in dishes, but in reference to the preparation of food as a matter of vogue. The practical has become independent of the strictly functional. It has been maintained in diverse contexts that the swings of fashion affect only things that are actually rather unimportant in life: superficial changes in clothing, adornment, decor, social conduct, and amusements. These fields are not seen as depending on really vital motives of human action. To be sure, even subjects such as religious faith and scientific interest can be steered by fashion, but not until they have been rendered superficial. Fashion does not reach them until they have become detached and therefore independent of the deeper human motives." One can perhaps discern a tendency towards hierarchical organization of fashion's various areas and angles of approach. The latest thing most likely appears as something more refined, and something to keep up with. Those who are in the know with the latest rules concerning the practical aspects of cooking stand out in the front lines of fashion. Fashion fixes the attention of the community on an object or process at a certain time and place.