  The framed standard model (FSM) suggested earlier, which incorporates the
Higgs field and 3 fermion generations as part of the framed gauge theory
structure, is here developed further to show that it gives both quarks and
leptons hierarchical masses and mixing matrices akin to what is experimentally
observed. Among its many distinguishing features which lead to the above
results are (i) the vacuum is degenerate under a global $su(3)$ symmetry which
plays the role of fermion generations, (ii) the fermion mass matrix is
"universal", rank-one and rotates (changes its orientation in generation space)
with changing scale $\mu$, (iii) the metric in generation space is
scale-dependent too, and in general non-flat, (iv) the theta-angle term in the
QCD action of topological origin gets transformed into the CP-violating phase
of the CKM matrix for quarks, thus offering at the same time a solution to the
strong CP problem.
