The article discusses the social space of consumption of domestic technologies in urban settings in People’s Republic of Poland. It argues that the state-implemented progress discourse was the key factor in the emergence of fashion within this context. Retrospective in-depth interviews were analyzed. Together it is 39 interviews with 27 participants. The interlocutors belong to elder historical generations. The findings suggest what was the course of the process of fashion emergence in socialist modernity. In the first step, due to the progress discourse the value of being modern was internalized. It allowed for adoption of ‘progressive’ domestic technologies. The fashion in terms of imitating novel and external patterns emerged. In the second step, due to the shortages of goods, the owned domestic technologies raised the social status of its owners. This is how social emulation emerged as the process of imitation and competition for the higher standard of living.