| Abstract: | This paper suggests possible implications of a study of clothing fashion leadership for current sociological theory in regard to the process of fashion diffusion. Theory of the diffusion of innovations was chosen as the framework for the investigation. Fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership were studied in relation to selected social, psychological, and economic variables. Since the test of collective selection occurs in the local social system it would seem appropriate that theories regarding the operation of the fashion process account more fully for the rate and degree of acceptance and rejection of innovations in the local social system, and for the functions of local participants in the process. Does current sociological theory account for diffusion of new ideas, practices, and products as well as their development and selection? |
