Changes in fashion reflect the dulness of nervous impulses: the more nervous the age, the more rapidly its fashions change, simply because the desire for differentiation, one of the most important elements of all fashion, goes hand in hand with the weakening of nervous energy. This fact in itself is one of the reasons why the real seat of fashion is found among the upper classes.

XREF: Connects to the societal nervousness themes in Weber's work on modernity, or to cultural criticism of the late 19th-century neurasthenia discourse.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 722