Fashion...Why do people follow

Fashion is a general term for a popular style or practice, especially in clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup, body piercing or furniture. Fashion refers to a distinctive and often habitual trend in the style with which a person dresses, as well as to prevailing styles in behaviour. Fashion also refers to the newest creations of textile designers. The more technical term, costume, has become so linked to the term "fashion" that the use of the former has been relegated to special senses like fancy dress or masquerade wear, while "fashion" means clothing more generally and the study of it. Although aspects of fashion can be feminine or masculine, some trends are androgynous.
It's a way that we signal "belonging" and "status" to one another.
It is a way for people to feel as if they "belong" but does everybody HAVE to follow the fashion. Not really. To me "follow fashion" is just another excuse for people to go out and spend well earned money on things they would most likely not wear again. the shoes i can understand, getting new clothes is a necessity but not buying the same or close to the same clothes as the celebs. And really, if it says cashmere are you really getting 100% of it? Most likely not...it's all a scam that so happens to work. Everybody does it from RL to PRADA...well lets not get into that one shall we..but my point is that you or anybody else shouldn't "follow" anything. This country has enough problems as is without everybody going broke trying to "belong". So maybe when anybody is out shopping, they would realize that they have something similar and that they really don't NEED it...i get what you're saying that they just want to "belong" but it's not a necessity to want anything, it's almost like an obsession