[T]his puzzle is, in the present state of evolutionary and sociological thinking, insoluble. Fashion is change and obsolescence imposed on a pattern of tyrannical conformity. Fashion is about status, and yet the sex that is obsessed with fashion is trying to impress the sex that cares least about status.

Matt Ridley, The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, New York, 1993, pp. 103-104