Costume visually encoded rank, occupation, and citizenship in preindustrial cities

Evidence

To a degree unknown to moderns, the resident of the preindustrial city literally “donned” his identity. The Roman citizen, for example, expressed the fact of his citizenship by wearing, as decreed by law, the white toga (Tanzer, 1939:9). A “gentleman” in the Colonial cities of America was known by his “perriwig” (Miller, 1966:111). — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 236

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s cross-reading: overt dress-coded identity is the preindustrial baseline against which Simmel’s blasé urban concealment and Cole’s detached observer diverge.
• ADDENDUM: Costume as identity-signaling parallels the dress-as-status-signaling thread in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back.’