Fashion and status signaling happen in all kinds of ways, and always have. It doesn't have to be only the rich, just look at the status of sneakers amongst low-income Americans. People like to stand out just like animals might have ever bigger horns/peacocks/claws/colors to signal that they're a great mate.

The larger body of work here is called 'signaling theory' and you can see it apply equally between animal and human domains. Pineapples first started as honest signals because only the wealthy could afford them. But once people started renting pineapples they became a dishonest signal, until the economics finally made it crash into either a costly signal (you should know they're no longer in vogue) or a lack of information at all (today).