Fall out of fashion

Fall out of fashion

Here’s an expression for you: “fall out of fashion.”

If something “falls out of fashion,” it is no longer popular. It once was popular, but it is no longer popular.

When we think of the word “fashion,” we typically think of clothing. And you can use “fall out of fashion” with clothing. But you can also use it with trends and technology.

Let’s start with clothing, though. The early versions of dollar stores used to buy merchandise really cheap and then sell everything for a dollar. They’d often get merchandise—stuff for sale—they’d get their stuff at liquidation sales. Sometimes when big stores end the season with a lot of extra inventory, they sell it in bulk at deep discounts. Sometimes when stores go out of business, they sell all their inventory at liquidation sales. This is where the old dollar stores would get their stuff.

And a lot of what they got would be things that had fallen out of fashion. Bigger stores couldn’t sell those things anymore, so they sold them to the dollar stores at a steep discount. I read an article that said a dollar store once bought pallets full of bell-bottom jeans—a popular type of jeans in the 1970s. They bought bell-bottom jeans, cut the bottoms off, and sold them as shorts.

Why? Because bell-bottom jeans had fallen out of fashion. They had been popular—but then they were not. They had fallen out of fashion.

Guys, of a certain age, you might remember buying suits with pleated pants. My first suit pants had pleats in them—I think I got my first suit in 1998. Pleats are the little folds that are sewn into the fronts of dress pants. Pleated pants have fallen out of fashion. You do not want to show up to a business meeting in New York wearing pleated pants. They’ll think you came from 1998.

Technology, gadgets can fall out of fashion—either because they’re obsolete or just because people have moved on. Fax machines have fallen out of fashion because they’re obsolete. We just don’t need them anymore, not with scanners and Docusign and all the rest. A handful of things still do require a fax machine, but they are very, very rare in modern life.

Maybe I’ll go out on a limb here and say that tablets have fallen out of fashion. I still have an iPad and I like it. But Apple isn’t selling iPads like they used to . I think tablets—maybe?—are starting to fall out of fashion.

Remember, people thought they would replace computers. But actually, they were never as powerful as full computers. And for reading, games, and mobile apps, phones are just as good or better. You might disagree, but I think tablets are falling out of fashion.

Just because something has fallen out of fashion doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. Film photography has fallen out of fashion. Almost everyone uses digital cameras or just their phones—almost everyone. Hobbyists and enthusiasts still use film.

CDs, compact discs, have fallen out of fashion. Streaming doesn’t sound quite as good as music played on a good CD player, not if you have good speakers. But it’s so much more convenient and more affordable. CDs have fallen out of fashion.

Professionally managed mutual funds have fallen out of fashion. These are an investment. These were a great way for ordinary people to invest in baskets of stocks. Customers would get together, pool their money, and pay a professional to buy and sell stocks in a mutual fund. The customers would enjoy the investment returns—or suffer the losses—but either way , they’d have to pay the manager.

Now, many people invest using exchange-traded funds. They’re not free, but they cost a lot less than mutual funds do. Instead of paying a manager to pick stocks, investors can get a pre-determined basket of stocks. It’s a lot cheaper, and often a better deal. So the old professionally-managed, actively-managed mutual funds have fallen out of fashion.

They’re still around—you can buy into them today. But they’ve fallen out of fashion.

See you next time!

And that brings us to the end of today’s lesson. This was number 687, so remember to check out the full lesson resources at PlainEnglish.com/687.

Next Monday is July 1. We’ll start our summer series on Monday. During July and August, the stories will be about American life and culture. Just a little bit of a different vibe for the summer months. Then we’ll be back to current events and trending topics in September.

The first summer episodes are about east-coast living versus west-coast living. Those will be next week’s episodes. And you can decide for yourself if you’d be happier in the east or in the west of the United States.

That’s Monday. For now, remember that this full lesson is available at PlainEnglish.com/687. See you next time.