How the Stanley Cup made me think about Economics

Just at the moment you thought you had nailed “Old Money Style” or that you had bought enough cucumber to perfect your “Viral Cucumber Salad”, there comes some new trend and you feel the need to rethink your whole wardrobe, so you keep up with the new “Brazilian Core” and run to the supermarket to buy the ingredients for the new “Banana Bread”. Trends are more than fleeting fascinations – they are economic forces. Social media and the internet accelerate and shape our consumer behaviour more than ever before. Understanding how and why trends rise and fall is crucial to perceive how consumers operate in modern times.

Fast fashion was, in the 1990s, the genesis of microtrends and showed us how trends’ lifecycles evolve: the spark appears (seeded by celebrities and algorithms themselves), it amplifies, copycats emerge, the market becomes saturated, and consumers get tired of it, thirsty for the next big thing. It feeds on short trend cycles and the constant production of trends that, quite by themselves, influence consumers to buy into them.

It is clear how tiring this is to manufacturers and supply chains. Companies adapt to these trends, knowing from the start that they will face a demand collapse shortly after. Rapid sales are quickly challenged by massive waste and consequent unsustainable practices as soon as the trend fades away. The key to thriving is to be the name behind the trend. The secret inside Pandora's box that unlocks a successful brand is to be Glossier, Stanley, or Miu Miu and reinvent concepts and preferences as soon as the product sees its decline approaching.

What I think is also interesting in this trend economy is the behaviour behind it. I was never the one to challenge how deeply Economics trusts rationality, but it seems important to recognise how this rationality has lost space to other important factors that drive consumption. If some decades ago rationality played the major part and necessity was the primary pilot of what people bought, today consumption is somehow much more emotional and performative. What does a 40€ water bottle offer more than a 7€ one? The feeling of belonging, the identity, the excitement. These feelings arise because brands do not just sell products - they sell stories, aspirations, social status, and a community.

Although this very accurately portrays current buying patterns, this idea goes back to Veblen’s Theory of Conspicuous Consumption (1899). It highlights how the acquisition of goods has many times a practical and a symbolic function - the goods are not meaningfully needed, but rather they are acquired so others can realise that they themselves do not or cannot have them, mirroring the purchaser’s superiority. This type of consumer behaviour emerged in its modern form after the Industrial Revolution, but Veblen argued that it can be traced back to other status symbols used in primitive societies.

When consumers are comfortable enough to put needs aside, rationality becomes optional and paralysing if it implies deciding between two hot trends consumers are so pressured to get. This changes everything – how firms price and market products, how demand is forecasted and how consumers are perceived by those trying to convince them to choose them.

Trends reveal something deeper: the economy no longer runs on rules or needs, but instead, utility gains a whole new layer of buzz that comes to drastically change the way we perceive consumer behaviour. In a world saturated with opportunities and choices, what we buy increasingly reflects who we are (or what we want others to think we are).