Fashion is fickle, but change constant

Fashions may change but change is always in fashion, according to new research that shows that trends come and go at a surprisingly steady rate.

While the nature of new fashions is impossible to predict, the rate of change between old and new is very consistent, scientists have found.

Their research also sheds light on how some celebrities, such as David Beckham, Madonna and David Bowie, have managed to defy moving fashions by constantly reinventing their images to appear new.

The work could have important implications for advertisers seeking to keep abreast of new trends and even to set them, researchers said.

A team led by Alex Bentley of Durham University sought to measure how fashion changes by looking at three very different areas in which changing tastes matter — album sales, children’s names and popular breeds of dog. In each case the rate at which new supplanted old remained remarkably constant.

In the US album charts, for example, an average of 5.6 per cent of the records in the Top 200 were replaced by new ones each month, consistently over a 30-year period.

Naming fashions had a similarly steady turnover: over a decade, an average of 18 per cent of the most popular girls’ names would be replaced by new ones, and 13 per cent of the most popular boys’ names. For dog breeds, 12 per cent of the most popular breeds would be replaced by new ones every four years.

The findings, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, suggest that popular culture conforms to rules that reflect how fashions go through a process of copying and innovation.

Most people decide what is fashionable by imitating others, but a small set of “innovators” — perhaps 1 per cent of the total — value change for its own sake and sometimes trigger new trends.

“Innovators are the cool ones who ‘pump’ new fashions into our world,” Dr Bentley said. “Most are ignored, but some get copied.”

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