{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","uuid":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","normalized_title":"timeconsumptionandeverydaylifepracticematerialityandculture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%2C%20Consumption%20and%20Everyday%20Life%20Practice%2C%20Materiality%20and%20Culture","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/search"},"page":{"printed_page":131,"pdf_page":132,"physical_index":132,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"6a5ced45be08ed99b4dac22e5f8257acc34269e6f9040c22c685e6b991240b0f"},"chapter":"List of Tables and Figures","content":"In sociological discussions of fashion inspired by Georg Simmel’s classical contribution, fashion has been analysed mainly from the point of view of its social origins, functions and cultural meanings. According to Simmel (1902), fashion originated from the dual process of social distinction and identification. Even though its standards are rapidly changing, fleeting and ephemeral, fashion creates social order by offering guidelines to orientation in a rapidly changing world. It is a harmless way to learn how to cope with the rapid social and cultural change typical of the modern societies (cf. Lipovetsky 1994). Fashion is therefore a phenomenon of modernity par excellence, fleeting, changing and quite impossible to get a grip on. From the point of view of its wider cultural meaning, the particular contents of any particular fashion, as well as their process of production and distribution, are of less importance. Owing to its contingent nature, anything will, after all, do just as long as it is new – or is experienced as such.\n\nTechnical Inventions vs Social Innovations\n\nDespite their seeming frivolity, fashions are real social and cultural inventions. No doubt, fashion designers and trend-setters work hard to create and invent the new ‘revolutionary’ models and designs to come. But they are no ‘real’ innovations. Despite the seemingly close resemblance between fashion and innovations as dynamics of cultural and social change, I have not found any studies which seriously and systematically reflect on the relation between these two extremely interesting and important social phenomena. As a matter of fact, the way that the great classic figure of innovation studies, Joseph Schumpeter, described innovation, it resembled ‘Simmelian’ fashion processes (Schumpeter 1911, 1939; also Kovács 2007). In Schumpeter’s opinion, the ‘raw material’ of innovations, techno-scientific inventions, is on offer in large numbers. Chance alone seems to determine which will develop into real innovations. At any one time, only a few will end up as ‘technical raw material’ to an innovation. The transformation of an invention into an innovation and its further social diffusion follow a path similar to that of fashions: from just a few original inventors it will spread first to early and then to later adopters, and finally to those lagging, until it has penetrated the whole spectrum of a society or one or more of its sectors.\n\nSchumpeter was mainly interested in this social process of innovation, in which, in his opinion, risk-taking entrepreneurs played a decisive role. The more technical and economic aspects of inventions were of less interest to him because only a small minority of inventions would ever develop into innovations, and, consequently, there was no lack of potential candidates. Inventions practically wait to be taken into use or turned into innovations by an active and innovative entrepreneur. The main obstacles to the innovative process in promoting socio-economic change and progress were not primarily of a technical or economic nature. The most demanding task a successful innovator-entrepreneur had to accomplish was to do the same thing expected from a fashion designer, that is, to seize an opportunity at the right time and to convince customers that they really need a particular invention. In doing so, an innovator might have to break the resistance of customers towards the invention. The extremely difficult job was to challenge and change traditions, habits and routines and thereby to open a way to a new path of social development. To accomplish all this, Schumpeter expected his innovator-entrepreneur to have almost heroic qualities. The resistance to innovations could include political, juridical and institutional limitations of all kinds and could be expressed in various ways, from harmless nonchalance, to strong disapproval and animosity, or even legal prohibitions.\n\nFads, Fashions and ‘Real’ Innovations\n\n131","previous_page":130,"next_page":132}