Mysteries of Fashion

The latest fashion mystery! Why is Hitherside, that nobody-and-nothing town, that favorite retirement spot of bulbous fish oil sellers with too much time on their hands and too much money in their cushions, suddenly producing wild designs we just can't stop praising? You can sit there and ask while I go and answer, because Calp the fashion investigator always solves it!
I arrived there and saw plenty of fathers dressed like grandpas and children dressed like grandma's smelly dolls just like we all used to expect from Hitherside, but don't think Hither fashion is for foreign consumption only. I found a livelier specimen named Tnapp with some of those broad cuffs and superfluous buttons we like to see who told me a local cult was responsible. Those Hithersiders have their jokes, don't they? I got a more helpful tip from a party favorite her parents attacked with the name Fnore, who told me the clothier Sment was the only one she trusted with Friday and Saturday's body-coverers.
Sment was happy to talk. Too much time on their hands, remember? That wasn't always true, he told me, but since business turned baskets-and-tubs he added more assistants than he knew what to do with. They came to town and begged to work for him! Maybe you fashion fiends aren't surprised, but Sment sounded like he just saw a taxman apologize for the trouble. His story was that customers saw some special orders he had out and demanded more of the same. Whose special orders? A local cult! I guess Tnapp wasn't giving me the funny falsos after all.
Now I won't tell you how I found the next subject because I don't want any of you taking my situation here. I'll only say that before long I was talking to a cultist who asked for reasons of privacy if I could refer to him only as Adherent of Azure. I think he enjoyed that a little too much, but the source is king, so I let it stand. He told me the cult's been having real problems because outsiders keep stealing their designs. They're trying to set themselves apart from the cheek-to-cheeks, after all. You don't want to go around asking people if they're in the same cult as you. Clear visual signs, that's the way. They keep having meetings and voting on new styles, and a week later every publication has diagrams. Don't you feel terrible for them?
I don't! I feel great, because I solved it again. Till next time, keep starching those shoulders. I will, and I'm Calp, the fashion investigator.
Finis