Comment by dkarl

In the business of apparel, I think this is a natural consequence of high-end buyers turning their noses up at long-lived brands, and working to differentiate themselves from mainstream middle-class buyers. It's a revolt against modernism making more and more goods accessible to people outside the economic and cultural elite.

If you're fancy, what do you do when mass production and the internet make the markers of fanciness accessible to the very people you're trying to be fancier than? For one, you stigmatize mass production and elevate artisanal handmade goods. Those are inherently impossible to democratize. Another thing you can do is replace the appreciation of quality with the act of discovery as proof of elevated taste. Make taste a moving target, so the dirty unwashed masses are always a step behind.

Brands like Brooks Brothers or Eddie Bauer have no place in this system. The best the masses can do to imitate the elites is buy cheap fast fashion from brands that go viral and don't live long enough for anyone to know their quality before they're gone.