Fashion is merely a product of social demands, even though the individual object which it creates or recreates may represent a more or less individual need. This is clearly proved by the fact that very frequently not the slightest reason can be found for the creations of fashion from the standpoint of an objective, aesthetic, or other expediency. While in general our wearing apparel is really adapted to our needs, there is not a trace of expediency in the method by which fashion dictates, for example, whether wide or narrow trousers, colored or black scarfs shall be worn. As a rule the material justification for an action coincides with its general adoption, but in the case of fashion there is a complete separation of the two elements, and there remains for the individual only this general acceptance as the deciding motive to appropriate it.

DEFINE: Defines fashion as a domain where the usual coincidence between material justification and adoption is broken; social demand alone drives the choice.

XREF: Connects to Simmel's broader social theory about how collective adoption, not individual utility, drives cultural forms. DEFINE: Establishes the key distinction between an action's material justification and its social adoption, central to understanding fashion as a social phenomenon.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 715