As head-scratching as many of these items are, we are at least blessed to live in a world where we can pretty freely choose what to wear. In the past, many legal codes set out specific rules for who could wear what and at what times. These “sumptuary laws” set apart the rich and powerful from everyone else. Of course, it seems like an interesting question to know just how aggressively they are actually kept.

For example, in ancient Greece, “A free-born woman may not leave the city during the night unless she is planning to commit adultery and a husband may not wear a gold-studded ring or a cloak of Milesian fashion unless he is bent upon prostitution or adultery.” Both of these indicate that you could actually just break these rules if you were willing to forgo some degree of social acceptability. 

Ancient China and Japan had similar laws, which also made sure to govern not just what one could wear, but even what sort of gravestone they might be able to have. This allowed rulers to feel special, as if palaces and power weren’t enough and it meant that often wealthy merchants couldn’t as easily flaunt their wealth, which was apparently quite annoying to aristocracy. Because evidently, wealth without the “right” blood was just not enough. 

In Medieval England, some of the sumptuary laws mostly existed to protect local industries. If people could not spend all their money on foreign items, they would spend it on English goods, keeping gold in the country and indirectly benefiting the crown which would get a portion of it as taxes. Certain items were even “mandated” as “English wear,” such as flat caps, in a particularly amusing instance of state-mandated fashion. 

And those who “escaped” to North America didn’t have it much better, despite the entire Atlantic ocean between them and the crown. The Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634 prohibited people under a certain level of wealth from wearing lace, silver or gold thread or buttons, cutwork, embroidery, hat bands, belts, ruffles, and capes, among other items. But in an act of early American rebelliousness, these laws were reportedly being defied pretty quickly.  

When it comes to the considerably more contemporary items here and to fashion in general, it’s important to note that not everyone dresses for comfort or even to look good. Sociologists believe that, particularly among teenagers, people will dress to “signal” to others what group they are in. It’s not surprising that most subcultures, regions, and economic classes all have fashion “markers” that set them apart. Of course, generally, it’s nowhere near as ridiculous as anything here.