The highly competitive nature of the apparel industry favours illicit copying of styles, counterfeiting of trade marks and labels, and exceptionally high mark-ups. The industry is strongly dependent on encouraging the consumer to adopt particular new styles and to reject old ones as unfashionable, thus leading to excessive allocation of resources to apparel which is only worn for a limited period before being discarded. Style changes are determined by a small elite whose motivation is to undermine the appropriateness of old styles, whether or not the new styles are appropriate, and to encourage conspicuous consumption on apparel.