The social diversification of fashion

ABSTRACT

We propose a model to investigate the dynamics of fashion traits purely driven by social interactions. We assume that people adapt their style to maximize social success, and we describe the interaction as a repeated group game in which the payoffs reflect the social norms dictated by fashion. On one hand, the tendency to imitate the trendy stereotypes opposed to the tendency to diverge from them to proclaim identity; on the other hand, the exploitation of sex appeal for dating success opposed to the moral principles of the society. These opposing forces promote diversity in fashion traits, as predicted by the modeling framework of adaptive dynamics. Our results link the so-called horizontal dynamics—the primary driver of fashion evolution, compared with the vertical dynamics accounting for interclass and economic drivers—to style variety.

KEYWORDS:

• Adaptive dynamics
• diversity
• evolutionary branching
• fashion
• game theory
• replicator equation
• social interactions

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to S. Rinaldi for precious discussions at an early stage of this project and to F. Breitenecker, J. P. Caulkins, and D. Vainchtein for their interest and comments during the ENOC 2014 Conference (Landi & Dercole, 2014). The contribution of the three anonymous reviewers is also acknowledged.

Funding

The work was supported by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (under contract FIRB RBFR08TIA4).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (under contract FIRB RBFR08TIA4).