Summary
Why We Follow Fashion Trends
The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
Smith reveals how custom and fashion shape our sense of beauty in everything from clothes to architecture to people's faces. He shows that when we see things paired together repeatedly, our minds create automatic associations - like expecting a suit to have all its buttons, even insignificant ones. Fashion works differently from general custom because it's driven by high-status people whose choices seem elegant simply because of who's making them. Once the elite abandon a style, it immediately looks cheap and awkward. This pattern extends far beyond clothing to music, poetry, and architecture. Smith uses examples like how the same poetic meter sounds heroic in French but silly in English, or how different cultures find completely opposite physical features beautiful. He discusses how influential artists can change entire cultural tastes, citing how Pope and Swift transformed English poetry. Smith also explores the theory that beauty comes from what's most typical in each category - the 'average' face or horse that represents the ideal form of its species. This explains why different climates produce different beauty standards, from thick lips being prized in some cultures to bound feet in others. While Smith acknowledges that some aesthetic preferences might be natural (smooth surfaces, pleasing colors), he argues that custom has enormous power over our judgments. Understanding this helps us recognize when we're following social conditioning versus genuine preference, and why what seems obviously beautiful or ugly to us might be completely arbitrary to someone from a different background. Smith's argument in this chapter builds on his central thesis that moral judgments arise not from abstract rules but from the lived experience of sympathy — the imaginative act of placing ourselves in another's situation and feeling what they would feel.
Coming Up in Chapter 32
Smith now turns from aesthetic judgments to something more serious: how custom and fashion shape our moral beliefs about right and wrong. If cultural habits can make us see beauty in bound feet or square-shaped heads, what does this mean for our sense of justice and virtue?
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An excerpt from the original text.(~500 words)
f the influence of custom and fashion upon our notions of beauty and deformity. There are other principles besides those already enumerated, which have a considerable influence upon the moral sentiments of mankind, and are the chief causes of the many irregular and discordant opinions which prevail in different ages and nations concerning what is blameable or praise-worthy. These principles are custom and faction, principles which extend their dominion over our judgments concerning beauty of every kind. When two objects have frequently been seen together, the imagination acquires a habit of passing easily from the one to the other. If the first appear, we lay our account that the second is to follow. Of 262their own accord they put us in mind of one another, and the attention glides easily along them. Though, independent of custom, there should be no real beauty in their union, yet when custom has thus connected them together, we feel an impropriety in their reparation. The one we think is awkward when it appears without its usual companion. We miss something which we expected to find, and the habitual arrangement of our ideas is disturbed by the disappointment. A suit of clothes, for example, seems to want something if they are without the most insignificant ornament which usually accompanies them, and we find a meanness or awkwardness in the absence even of a haunch button. When there is any natural propriety in the union, custom increases our sense of it, and makes a different arrangement appear still more disagreeable than it would otherwise seem to be. Those who have been accustomed to see things in a good taste, are more disgusted by whatever is clumsy or awkward. Where the conjunction is improper, custom either diminishes, or takes away altogether, our sense of the impropriety. Those who have been accustomed to slovenly disorder lose all sense of neatness or elegance. The modes of furniture or dress which seem ridiculous to strangers, give no offence to the people who are used to them. Fashion is different from custom, or rather is a particular species of it. That is not the fashion which every body wears, but which those wear who are of a high rank, or character. The graceful, the easy, and commanding manners of the great, joined to the usual richness and magnificence of their dress, give a grace to the very form which they happen to bestow 263upon it. As long as they continue to use this form, it is connected in our imaginations with the idea of something that is genteel and magnificent, and though in itself it should be indifferent, it seems, on account of this relation, to have something about it that is genteel and magnificent too. As soon as they drop it, it loses all the grace, which it had appeared to possess before, and being now used only by the inferior ranks of people, seems to have something of their meanness and awkwardness. Dress and furniture are allowed by all...
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Intelligence Amplifier™ Analysis
The Road of Borrowed Beauty - How Status Creates Taste
We develop aesthetic preferences by unconsciously copying the choices of high-status people around us, mistaking social mimicry for personal taste.
Why This Matters
Connect literature to life
This chapter teaches how to recognize when you're unconsciously copying someone else's preferences because of their social position rather than genuine appeal.
Practice This Today
This week, notice when you find yourself suddenly liking something that a boss, influencer, or high-status person in your circle recently mentioned—then ask if you'd have chosen it independently.
Now let's explore the literary elements.
Terms to Know
Custom
The habits and practices that become normal through repetition in a society. Smith argues that custom shapes what we find beautiful or proper, not because these things are naturally better, but because we're used to seeing them together.
Modern Usage:
We see this in how certain fashion combinations feel 'right' - like how a business suit 'needs' a tie, even though there's nothing naturally better about that pairing.
Fashion
Temporary styles adopted by high-status people that others copy to seem sophisticated. Unlike custom, fashion changes quickly and what was elegant yesterday can look tacky today once the elite move on.
Modern Usage:
This is why designer brands can make expensive items look cheap the moment they go mainstream, or why certain slang becomes cringe once parents start using it.
Moral sentiments
The feelings and judgments we have about what's right, wrong, beautiful, or ugly. Smith shows these aren't fixed truths but are heavily influenced by what our culture teaches us to value.
Modern Usage:
This explains why the same behavior can feel normal in one workplace but completely inappropriate in another - our moral compass is calibrated by our environment.
Propriety
The sense that things fit together correctly or appropriately. What feels proper varies dramatically between cultures and time periods, showing it's learned rather than natural.
Modern Usage:
We feel this when someone breaks unwritten social rules - like wearing flip-flops to a funeral or using emojis in a resignation letter.
Association of ideas
How our minds automatically connect things we've seen together repeatedly. Once these mental links form, we expect certain combinations and feel uncomfortable when they're broken.
Modern Usage:
This is why certain songs instantly remind us of specific people or why we associate certain colors with holidays - our brains have linked them through repetition.
Standard of beauty
The ideal appearance that a culture considers attractive, which Smith argues comes from what's most common or typical in that environment rather than universal principles.
Modern Usage:
This explains why beauty standards vary so much globally - from body types to skin tones to facial features - and why they change over time within the same culture.
Characters in This Chapter
Alexander Pope
Cultural influencer
Smith uses Pope as an example of how individual artists can reshape entire cultural tastes. Pope's poetic style became the standard that others followed, showing how influential people create new customs.
Modern Equivalent:
The celebrity influencer whose style choices become trends that everyone copies
Jonathan Swift
Literary trendsetter
Mentioned alongside Pope as someone whose artistic choices influenced what an entire generation considered beautiful or proper in literature.
Modern Equivalent:
The breakthrough artist whose sound defines a whole genre and influences countless imitators
Key Quotes & Analysis
"When two objects have frequently been seen together, the imagination acquires a habit of passing easily from the one to the other."
Context: Smith explains how our minds form automatic associations through repetition
This reveals how much of what we consider natural or obvious is actually learned through experience. Our sense of what 'goes together' isn't innate but trained through repeated exposure.
In Today's Words:
When you see two things paired up a lot, your brain starts expecting them to go together.
"We feel an impropriety in their separation. The one we think is awkward when it appears without its usual companion."
Context: Describing why we feel something is 'wrong' when familiar combinations are broken
This shows how custom creates a sense of rightness that feels moral but is really just habit. What seems obviously wrong to us might be perfectly fine to someone with different associations.
In Today's Words:
When things that usually go together get separated, it just feels off and wrong to us.
"A suit of clothes, for example, seems to want something if they are without the most insignificant ornament which usually accompanies them."
Context: Using clothing as an example of how custom makes us expect even tiny details
This demonstrates how arbitrary many of our standards are. We can feel that something essential is missing even when it's completely unnecessary, just because we're used to seeing it.
In Today's Words:
Even a tiny missing button can make a whole outfit look incomplete, not because the button matters but because we expect it to be there.
Thematic Threads
Class
In This Chapter
Fashion and beauty standards flow downward from elite to masses, creating artificial hierarchies of taste
Development
Builds on earlier discussions of class markers, now showing how aesthetic judgment becomes a class performance
In Your Life:
You might find yourself preferring brands or styles simply because successful people in your field use them.
Identity
In This Chapter
What we think are personal aesthetic preferences are largely borrowed from our social environment
Development
Continues exploring how identity forms through social mirroring rather than independent choice
In Your Life:
Your sense of what looks 'right' on you probably comes from copying people you admire rather than genuine self-knowledge.
Social Expectations
In This Chapter
Beauty standards vary completely across cultures, proving their arbitrary nature
Development
Expands beyond behavioral expectations to show how even basic perceptions are socially constructed
In Your Life:
You might judge others' appearance or choices harshly when they're just following different cultural programming than yours.
Human Relationships
In This Chapter
We form connections partly based on shared aesthetic preferences that aren't actually personal
Development
Shows how relationships form around artificial commonalities rather than genuine compatibility
In Your Life:
You might feel closer to people who share your taste in music or style, not realizing you both copied it from the same sources.
You now have the context. Time to form your own thoughts.
Discussion Questions
- 1
Smith shows how we automatically assume whatever high-status people choose must be beautiful or elegant. Can you think of a time when you found yourself liking something mainly because someone you admired liked it first?
analysis • surface - 2
Why does Smith say that once fashionable people abandon a style, it immediately looks cheap and awkward? What's really happening in our minds when this shift occurs?
analysis • medium - 3
Where do you see this pattern playing out today - people copying the aesthetic choices of whoever has the highest status in their environment?
application • medium - 4
Smith suggests we can recognize when we're following social conditioning versus genuine preference. How would you test whether your own taste preferences are truly yours or absorbed from others?
application • deep - 5
If most of what we consider beautiful is just cultural conditioning, what does this reveal about how easily our judgments can be shaped by whoever happens to be in power around us?
reflection • deep
Critical Thinking Exercise
Trace Your Taste Influences
Pick one area where you have strong preferences - music, clothes, home decor, or food. Write down your top 3 favorites in that category. Then trace backward: where did each preference come from? Who did you first see choosing this? What was their status in your life at the time? Be honest about whether you developed these tastes independently or absorbed them from someone you wanted to be like.
Consider:
- •Don't judge yourself for having absorbed preferences - everyone does this
- •Notice patterns in whose taste you tend to copy across different areas
- •Consider whether your current influences are people whose judgment you actually respect
Journaling Prompt
Write about a time when you realized your taste had changed not because you genuinely preferred something new, but because you were unconsciously copying someone with higher status. How did this recognition change your relationship to that preference?
Coming Up Next...
Chapter 32: When Society Shapes Your Moral Compass
Smith now turns from aesthetic judgments to something more serious: how custom and fashion shape our moral beliefs about right and wrong. If cultural habits can make us see beauty in bound feet or square-shaped heads, what does this mean for our sense of justice and virtue?
