This time of the year when presents are bought strikes me as the time when fads are at their most prominent. Previous years have seen Deely boppers, Space hoppers, Cabbage Patch dolls and Chopper bikes for example. I cant put me finger on why but I think the Chopper Bike was a fashion whilst the others were fads.
Green Ketchup is a fad. Baked beans with Marmite most likely a fad. Everywhere you go now you see menus with various items with Salted Caramel or Halloumi (not together obviously) – these most likely are a fashion that may have started as a fad.
The Berni Inn was a fashion that disappeared so to Wimpy and most likely (in this country anyway) Burger King although Five Guys are springing up everywhere despite their pricing.
Shellsuits were thankfully short lived so too the poodle perm which surely must have been a fab.
Years gone by we loved the smell of Brut, in more years i was temporarily taken with Millionaire and Joop aftershaves both of which I wouldn’t consider as an aftershave I would go anywhere near.
Is the LGBT logo here to stay or is it fad for our times.
Would be interested to hear views on this and other examples.
Fad or Fashion? Is there a difference?
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On Masterchef now the word “cooking” is verboten. An editorial decision has been made that everyone has to say “cookery”. A reminder that high end cooking* claims to be about going back to basics and fundamentals and having your own style when it is actually about fashion and doing what is acceptable in the current climate.
(*which I will continue to say because saying cookery all the time sounds fking styoopid)
And they insist on saying ‘plate’ rather than ‘meal’. Wankers.
Plate is a verb rather than a noun as far as I’m concerned.
To me, a “fad” doesn’t usually last longer than a season, ie a single Christmas, whereas a “fashion” can last for quite a while, maybe even a few years. Stocking fillers seem to fall more into the fad territory, whereas items of clothing seem to fall a bit more into the fashion area. In our house anyway…
Though Wilde wrote ‘A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months’ I think there’s something in this, a fad as more of a flash in the pan.
Don’t you have better things to worry about on you birthday Steve? Hope you’re having a great day anyway.
Yes was just noodling before getting ready to go out with the missis, my brother and his girlfriend.
Then dinner tomorrow night at a rather posh restaurant with the good lady and then lunch on Sunday with friends. I was told by she who must be obeyed that I have more birthdays than the bloody Queen.
👍
Well you do now, for sure.
“Cookery” implies artistic endeavour, whereas “Cooking” is just turning out stuff to eat.
Generally, if something calls itself fashion, then it’s claiming to have some substance to it.
A fad is a trend lacking in substance, that is likely to prove ephemeral.
Fashion possibly when something is taken up and continues. When the first rain umbrella was carried by Jonas Hathaway was thought to be in 1760. He was pelted and mocked but continued nonetheless until other people took it up.
Fads just don’t continue they have their moment, there’s an initial mad rush to buy, then buyers remorse. They then appear on one of those talking head programmes “Do you remember the 50s 60s 70s 80s?”
Waltz – fashion
Gangnam Style – fad
It’s only in retrospect that we can decide whether something is a fad or a fashion.
The word fashion is not derogatory; the word fad certainly is. I’d use it to describe a fashion that I disliked.
Fads have been around quite a while:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/fad
“From 1881 as “fashion, craze,” or as Century Dictionary has it, “trivial fancy adopted and pursued for a time with irrational zeal.”
Fads are more hysterical.
Pop music is a fad; one day all these so called singers will havto get a job. I blame the end of National Service. You wouldn’t catch anyone who has had that privilege engaging in that mullarkey.
Bill Perks? Never ‘eard of ‘im
Fads are really interesting – something that is instantly popular with enormous numbers of people then vsnishes almost immediately, like a wisp of tissue paper – like kindling without the firewood for a sustained burn.
Is a craze a more excitable version of a fad?
Bleed like a fad, Dad
What about a ‘moment’?