“How can we use reference group theory to understand fashion in society?” (2014)
Fashion is a regular cycle of imitation and abandonment of styles. Robert K. Merton‘s reference group theory explains the engine behind it: people dress to match the groups they measure themselves against or aspire to join, and to distance themselves from groups they reject.
Reference group mechanisms in fashion
- Non-membership positive reference groups. Georg Simmel (“Fashion”, 1904) described fashion as a tension between imitation and differentiation. Lower strata copy elite styles, and elites move on to new ones. This trickle-down cycle is reference group behaviour in action.
- Conspicuous consumption. Thorstein Veblen (The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899) showed that the leisure class displays wealth through clothing that is costly and impractical. This gives others a visible standard.
- Anticipatory socialisation. A final-year student starts wearing formal blazers before campus placements, and small-town migrants adopt metropolitan styles. Both take on the dress of a group they hope to join, which eases entry, as Merton argued.
- Normative and comparative functions. Peer groups enforce dress codes (normative), and people judge whether they look “in” or “out” against a benchmark (comparative). Falling behind produces relative deprivation, felt as being unfashionable.
- Negative reference groups. Subcultures define themselves against the mainstream. Dick Hebdige (Subculture: The Meaning of Style, 1979) read punk style as symbolic resistance. In India, Mahatma Gandhi‘s khadi turned the British and mill-cloth consumers into a negative reference group, making homespun cloth a nationalist fashion.
Reversals and newer patterns
- Bubble-up. Street, working-class and youth styles such as denim, hip-hop wear and sneakers now move upward. The reference group is sometimes below, not above.
- Collective selection. Herbert Blumer (1969) argued that fashion reflects a shared taste of the moment rather than class emulation alone.
- Influencers and fast fashion. Instagram creators have become accessible non-membership reference groups, and fast-fashion chains shorten the time between the runway and the high street. Tata-owned value-fashion chain Zudio, launched in 2016, crossed 1,000 stores in more than 300 cities by September 2026.
Indian illustration
M. N. Srinivas‘s Westernisation captures colonial-era elites adopting suits, while Sanskritisation captures lower castes adopting the dress markers of higher castes. Bridal wear copied from celebrity weddings shows the same process today.
Limits
- Fashion also expresses individual creativity and the “I”, not only group comparison.
- Markets and advertising manufacture reference groups, a point Pierre Bourdieu (Distinction, 1979) develops as the class struggle over taste.
Conclusion
Reference group theory explains why fashion changes: emulation of aspirational groups, rejection of negative ones and the discontent of falling behind. Trickle-down now sits alongside bubble-up and influencer circuits, but comparison remains the core of fashion.