  The Standard Model does not constrain the form of the Yukawa matrices and
thus the origin of fermion mass hierarchies and mixing pattern remains
puzzling. On the other hand, there are intriguing relations between the quark
masses and their weak mixing angles, such as the well-known one $\tan \theta_C=
\sqrt{m_d/m_s}$ for the Cabibbo angle, which may point towards specific
textures of Yukawa matrices hypothesized by Harald Fritzsch at the end of the
70's. Though the original ansatz of Fritzsch is excluded by the experimental
data, one can consider its minimal modification which consists in introducing
an asymmetry between the 23 and 32 entries in the down-quark Yukawa matrix. We
show that this structure is perfectly compatible with the present precision
data on quark masses and CKM mixing matrix, and theoretically it can be
obtained in the context of $SU(5)$ model with inter-family $SU(3)_H$ symmetry.
We also discuss some alternative approaches which could give a natural
description of the fermion mass spectrum and weak mixing pattern.
