“Fashion” by James Madison, National Gazette, March 22, 1792
An humble address has been lately presented to the Prince of Wales by the buckle manufacturers of
Birmingham, Wassal, Wolverhampton, and their environs, stating that the buckle trade gives
employment to more than twenty thousand persons, numbers of whom, in consequence of the
prevailing fashion of shoestrings & slippers, are at present without employ, almost destitute of
bread, and exposed to the horrors of want at the most inclement season; that to the manufactures of
buckles and buttons, Birmingham owes its important figure on the map of England; that it is to no
purpose to address fashion herself, she being void of feeling and deaf to argument, but fortunately
accustomed to listen to his voice, and to obey his commands: and finally, imploring his Royal
Highness to consider the deplorable condition of their trade, which is in danger of being ruined by
the mutability of fashion, and to give that direction to the public taste, which will insure the lasting
gratitude of the petitioners.
Several important reflections are suggested by this address.
I. The most precarious of all occupations which give bread to the industrious, are those depending
on mere fashion, which generally changes so suddenly, and often so considerably, as to throw
whole bodies of people out of employment.
II. Of all occupations those are the least desirable in a free state, which produce the most servile
dependence of one class of citizens on another class. This dependence must increase as the
mutuality of wants is diminished. Where the wants on one side are the absolute necessaries; and on
the other are neither absolute necessaries, nor result from the habitual œconomy of life, but are the
mere caprices of fancy, the evil is in its extreme; or if not,
III. The extremity of the evil must be in the case before us, where the absolute necessaries depend
on the caprices of fancy, and the caprice of a single fancy directs the fashion of the community.
Here the dependence sinks to the lowest point of servility. We see a proof of it in the spirit of the
address. Twenty thousand persons are to get or go without their bread, as a wanton youth, may
fancy to wear his shoes with or without straps, or to fasten his straps with strings or with buckles.
Can any despotism be more cruel than a situation, in which the existence of thousands depends on
one will, and that will on the most slight and fickle of all motives, a mere whim of the imagination.
IV. What a contrast is here to the independent situation and manly sentiments of American
citizens, who live on their own soil, or whose labour is necessary to its cultivation, or who were
occupied in supplying wants, which being founded in solid utility, in comfortable accommodation,
or in settled habits, produce a reciprocity of dependence, at once ensuring subsistence, and
inspiring a dignified sense of social rights.
V. The condition of those who receive employment and bread from the precarious source of
fashion and superfluity, is a lesson to nations, as well as to individuals. In proportion as a nation
consists of that description of citizens, and depends on external commerce, it is dependent on the
consumption and caprice of other nations. If the laws of propriety did not forbid, the manufacturers
of Birmingham, Wassal, and Wolverhampton, had as real an interest in supplicating the arbiters of
fashion in America, as the patron they have addressed. The dependence in the case of nations is
even greater than among individuals of the same nation: for besides the mutability of fashion which
is the same in both, the mutability of policy is another source of danger in the former.
http://www.constitution.org/jm/jm.htm