Fads and Fashions
To clarify the difference between innovation and fashion clearer, it is useful to pay attention to a third social phenomenon in between these two, and equally typical of modern consumption. Despite the fact that fads are extremely important and quite common social phenomena, they have hardly been analysed sociologically. Meyersohn and Katz (1957) are an important exception. They did not, however, systematically distinguish between fashions and fads.<sup>4</sup> Fads are like fashions. They come and go, without any obvious reason and without leaving any deeper or more permanent traces in the community. They are like ‘real’ innovations in that they do not appear within a regular fashion cycle, like a new fashionable design. New fads are not the functional equivalents to any previous fads. As ‘real’ novelties they thus have to create themselves a social place of their own, and the habits, routines and new meanings attached to them.
Fads are typical among children and teenagers, who obviously have more need of simple and visible signs and symbols of common taste than adults do. Fads can be found in particular in various worlds of play and games. Good examples are hula hoops, yo-yos and the small collapsible metal scooters that made their sudden appearance about ten years ago. Fads seldom require great technical invention. Their prototypes are found as if ready-made. They can be modifications of some older products that have been around for a long time. This does not, as such, distinguish them form more ‘serious’ inventions. Even these can have existed among their own constituencies for a long time before being ‘discovered’ by entrepreneurs and the broader public. No great effort in the production process turns an invention into an innovation. Instead it is distinguished by its reception and integration into the social world of its users, even against their resistance.
Fads typically hit their customers like a storm and conquer them almost overnight. Suddenly, in my childhood, every kid in the neighbourhood had to swing a hula hoop or wear a self-illuminating Phantom ring. They could, even more than ordinary fashion, be understood as a typical crowd phenomenon. Often they are the only thing that unites otherwise totally disparate people whose fascination they have captured. Everyone has to have them, not just something similar but exactly the right make and model. After conquering the whole market they disappear as quickly as they appeared, just like fashions. Unlike fashion, however, they do not leave behind an empty place immediately to be filled up by another fashion. It can take a long time before another fad conquers the same group of consumers again. In some cases, they may turn into valuable and rare collectable items, or they remain cherished and hibernating among smaller groups, in which case they can become ordinary hobby objects. They can even make a comeback, but this renewed effort hardly ever manages to live up to the expectations created by their former glory. Some fads can even become a permanent part of the life of their consumers. This would turn them into real innovations.
Fads, Fashions and ‘Real’ Innovations
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