fashion [ME] If you were out of fashion in the early 1500s you were not outmoded, you were ‘out of shape’. Fashion originally meant ‘make, shape, or appearance’ as well as ‘a particular style’, and it was not until the mid 16th century that it developed the sense of ‘a popular style of clothes or way of behaving’. In fashion and out of fashion were both used by Shakespeare to mean ‘in vogue’ and ‘out of vogue’. In Julius Caesar, when the defeated Brutus plans to kill himself, he says, ‘Slaying is the word. It is a deed in fashion.’