Fashion is an entirely unnecessary and yet delightful detail of human life. No one could contend that a person who did not follow the fashion was lacking in any great mental or moral quality; yet to be in the fashion has given joy in age after age, not only to the women who are thus up-to-date in their costume, but to the men who behold them.
As a rule, men's attitude towards women's fashions is one of amused tolerance. They pretend that they are unable to detect the nice distinctions between the latest model from Paris and a dress that is hopelessly out of date. But they are in reality just as eager to conform to the popular idea of what is and what is not worn.
But men's fashions change slowly, and men, unlike women, like to be the last to leave an old fashion rather than the first to embrace a new. They have no desire either, that their womenfolk should be in the very front rank of fashion. It would make them embarrassed to be seen in public with a woman who was wearing something which caused every eye to be turned upon her. But they like their wives to be dressed as most other women are dressed.
Fashion is an arbitrary mistress to whom most women are slaves, but though her commands are often unreasonable and not seldom absurd, she is followed willingly, for the reward she offers is that sense of adventure and variety which is the spice of life.
(From Fifty Model Essays by Joice Miller)
