Dedicated Follower of Fashion - Legacy

Legacy

Despite its commercial success, the song actually began to trigger some of the identity crises that would later plague Davies' personal life. He wrote later:

With 'A Dedicated Follower of Fashion' such a hit, people started coming up to me on the street and singing the chorus in my face: 'Oh yes he is, oh yes he is,' as if to say that I knew who I was. Unfortunately, my inner and somewhat distorted sense of reality told me that this was not who I wanted to be: I didn't know who I was.

In subsequent years many of those the song derided would later take its title to heart. Holly Brubach, fashion writer for The New Yorker, borrowed the song's title for a collection of her essays. Outside of fashion, the song's title has remained a metaphor for slavish conformity, but in a more positive sense as an analogy for the growth of online social networks.