Why did the average person dress more nicely in the past?

People didn’t dress like that everyday

He smells awful

Reminds me of my old thread about why dont people wear hats anymore

Because that was just the fashion of the time.

That was what was available and in fashion at the time.

It looks good but I don't get the appeal of everybody wearing the same thing, expressing no individual sense of style

>posted from my iphone

Don't delude yourself, OP. Back then you'd still be whining about why people didn't wear medieval attire while people laughed at you for being an autist trying to rationalize not fitting in by deriding what people normally wear and thinking you have some superior taste.

>everyone looks good
>l should do different thing because everyone is doing thing

There are many ways to look good
Why would you want everyone to blend together? It makes a good looking style, plain and ordinary

Speak for yourself. It's trashy tho.

Because almost nothing else was available. Simple lack of choice.

What motivates this kind of butthurt response?

By butthurt response do you mean whining because people wear t-shirts and jeans to go to the store? Feelings of inadequacy, I guess.

Ignorance of the Edwardian era and style of dress.

The textiles industry has made great strides since the days when a man owned three sets of clothes, one of which were his Sunday wear. Clothing has become vastly cheaper to buy, manufacture, and distribute to the point of becoming disposable, with tons of clothing just dropped in Africa or something as part-charity and part-disposal. Clothing culture has also shifted as a result, though you'll still be looked at as sort of a schlub if you're only ever seen in tees and jeans. Personally, and as autistic of an opinion as I realize this is to hold, I'm kind of saddened by modern trends in fashion and fashion culture. A lot of western fashion, sans art fashion and the like, follows a British archetype and evolution from hunting attire, white tie fashion, and so on. Though you'll see minor variations between countries and individuals with fitting and certain other aspects such as lapel style, button placement (and how they're buttoned), and so on, it still follows a predominantly British pattern. Would have been nice to see how different cultural fashions might have evolved. Not quite to the extent of hanfu LARPing, but a take on the hanfu to meet the needs of the day would be lovely to see to be as ubiquitous as the tee and jeans.

How do you infer such alleged ignorance from my post? I didn't say anything regarding what that era and that sene of style were like.

Because slaves have to wear the uniforms of their masters. Take a look at most wage slaves today.

Not him but you completely missed the point. Before garment manufacturing, rich people wore clothes that were the predecessors to what the laborers in the photographs are wearing. When clothes became cheap to manufacture, stores sold """suits""" because that is what all clothes were in those days: utilitarian and rough, or "formal" (by today's standards). But they were just plain clothes to everyone at the time.