One of the easiest ways to see the trickle down effect was described briefly in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. Malcolm talks of how one fashion trend, the Hush Puppies shoes, were able to come out of near death because of a few trend-setting hipsters. But what does Miranda Priestly, Meryl Streep’s fashion editor character in “The Devil Wears Prada”, have to think about this whole idea. The difference between what really happens in fashion and what Miranda Priestly says happens in fashion are very different things.

The Hush Puppy trend began with a few local trend-setters and grew into a nationwide craze within a couple years. This could definitely be described as a trickle up. When designers caught on to how hot hush puppies were with the trendy hipsters they couldn’t get their hands on the shoes fast enough for their own runways. Anyone buying the shoes in this early stage would be labeled an early adopter and definitely had to have a little bit more edge and confidence to try something so new. But once the shoes were on runways and celebrities all the average adopters and the laggers would start buying up the hush puppies no matter what. Miranda Priestly wasn’t too far off, but left out one important detail about how fashion trends begin.

A fashion trend isn’t just created out of thin air by some higher up fashion editor or designer. In a style similar of most art, fashion takes its cues from what is happening around the world in style and pop culture. Miranda Priestly said that a character was “wearing the sweater that was selected for [her] by the people in this room.”  Miranda was not too far off though, because without the fashion industry catching on to these trends and highlighting them there may not be any trends at all. No matter who is right they both make it very clear that a fashion trend starts somewhere and causes a cascade of information to other people.

No matter where you want to believe that fashion trends begin it’s easy to see that they are great examples of an information cascade.  Just like in the idea of an information cascade there are a group of early adopters.  These are users that take the initial risk and try out a new fashion trend.  These can either be specific groups of trendy people or fashion designers and editors thinking up new exciting things that could become trends.  The next group are the people that watch these early adopters.  These could be fashionistas that follow the designers and big name fashion publications such as Vogue.  This group could also contain people that are inside the trendy group that started the trend.  These second round adopters only have the initial adopters information of whether this is a real trend or not to go off of and still have a decision whether or not they want to take part in this fashion choice.  The third group of people consist of the average consumer.  Most people watch TV and movies to see what is popular, but mainly rely on their friends.  If they see enough of their fashion trendy friends or celebrities wearing a product they will rationally act on the trend as well, whether or not they truly love it.  This is where the information cascade comes in and also where another information cascade starts to happen.

Just as the fashion trend becomes popular to the general public, the trend setters now feel they need something new and start a cascade to fade out the old trend.  The same way a trend comes in through the three groups the trend leaves.  Who really creates fashion might be in debate, but there is no doubt that every fashion trend follows the rules of an information cascade.  Next time you wonder about why you just bought something, think about how an information cascade gave you almost no choice in the matter.