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Lindvaettr t1_ja5ayg3 wrote

Reply to comment by PhDandanxiety in My brother waiting for his bride, Sikh wedding. by flying_ina_metaltube

We abandoned them (for men, anyway) at the turn of the 19th century and never readopted them. It's really an absolute shame. Men's western fashion seems to have done little be decline in the centuries since.

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ownedbydogs t1_ja5kg0g wrote

Blame Beau Brummell.

He was the guy who, in the early 19th century (so during the Napoleonic Wars) started and popularized the male standard of highly tailored and neutral coloured or monochromatic black and white clothing in luxury fabrics. Brummell was good friends with the Prince of Wales, who was then the Prince Regent b/c King George was mad, and of course Brummell’s taste in fashion as extolled by the guy who ruled Britain meant that men of means were quick to follow suit (pun not intended).

Before then Western men’s fashions were as colourful and excessive as the women’s, and for the same purpose - to show off one’s wealth and taste. Compare a Tudor to a Georgian nobleman and you’ll see similar use of colours. But Georgian-era dandy to a Victorian gentleman? And that was in only 50 years.

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