Jeans, Suits, Athleisure, Saris: Four Examples of Why We Dress the Way We Dress

A few weeks ago, I shared the four layers of fashion, the reasons why we dress the way we dress: function, aesthetics, signaling, and path dependency. But it’s hard to be convinced of how universal these rules are without considering examples, so here are four key ones: suits, athleisure, jeans, and saris.

The Western Business Suit

Usually a dark blue or …