How do things become “Fashion?”

My most recent musings led me to ask myself this question as I wondered about the origin of Red Velvet Cakes (out of all things). See most recently the trend in baking has been red velvet, suddenly it’s all everybody talks about, and making the most perfect red velvet cakes is testimony to your excellent baking skills. Now I have never tried making these myself, mainly because I’ve tasted it and really can’t understand the obsession. I will always remain a chocolate cake loyalist.

It got me thinking though- Does everybody really prefer eating red velvet cakes above all else. I mean do they actually love the way it tastes, or has this just become the latest fashion? Now I get that people need diversity in life, that’s all well and good, even I would get sick of eating chocolate cake all the time. But when something suddenly takes the world by storm and becomes the latest craze, I usually look at it with a good dose of scepticism, being the anti-fashion person that I am.

Red velvets aside, I can name many other things that have taken people by storm and this is as diverse as a particular hairstyle to the type of water bottle that people use. Yes, you’ve heard me correctly, even water bottles can come into fashion. A while back I saw this glass water bottle being sold and wanted to buy it for my mother, unbeknownst to me, this very bottle was the latest craze. Soon I saw it all over the place and everyone was suddenly using them. I had to wonder how come so many people suddenly understood that drinking water is healthier than any other drink, but anyway, at least people were drinking water right?

It would be interesting to know where things originated from. Who first decided to try out red velvet cupcakes and how did it manage to become a craze? Which person thought of the idea of selling funky glass water bottles? Who decided that beaded bookmarks would be cool?...

Where exactly do all these “fashions” or perhaps they are more aptly referred to as “fads” come about? And how does a simple idea suddenly become so popular?

I’d like to hear different thoughts on this and at the same time, the next time you’re about to eat a red velvet cupcake, I would like you to consider whether you really like it for what it tastes like or do you like it because it somehow makes you feel like you are part of the “in thing”? And of course this applies to every other “fashion trend” which so often surfaces.

Let’s start thinking about whether our choices are our own or if they are simply choices made under the influence of others, as bizarre as that may sound. 

Image 1 from here

Image 2 from here