Fashion as a concept has become intertwined with identity, status, and culture, signifying more than just clothing but also indicating trends, practices, and aesthetic choices in various aspects of life including high-end audio.
Today, for example, it's fashionable to stream music, but step back in time a few years to the era where streaming was only for left field outliers and the fashion of the day looks very much like optical discs.
A lot of fashion trends have me mystified. How is it fashionable for younger "hip" folks to spend hundreds of dollars on pre-ripped jeans but when mine get a hole in the knee they get washed and marched off to the Goodwill?
We all buy into fashion trends to some degree, even the folks that work hard at being anti-fashion—which, like it or not, is your fashion statement.
I am always fascinated by the ever changing spiral of year-to-year fashion trends in our industry: home theaters were in fashion, and then they weren't. Subwoofers were de rigueur and then they weren't. Magic dots, resonators, and anti-vibration tricks populated many a fine listening room, but now they're stuck somewhere in a drawer.
What'll we worry about next?
