"For a creative principle, capable of serving as motive to invention and innovation in fashions, we shall have to go back to the primitive, non-economic motive with which apparel originated—the motive of adornment. ...The changing styles are the expression of a restless search for something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense; but as each innovation is subject to the selective action of the norm of conspicuous waste, the range within which innovation can take place is somewhat restricted."
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p.173-174
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class
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The Theory of the Leisure Class
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