On Sun, May 31, 2015 at 11:15 AM, Freelance Traveller
<editor@freelancetraveller.com> wrote:

> Sumptuary laws were originally enacted ostensibly to control excessive
> conspicuous consumption, but they eventually morphed into a tool of
> social control and enforcement of social stratification.

Those are  essentially the same thing.   Controlling conspicuous
comsumption IS a tool of social control and enforcement of social
stratification.

> Over time, many habits of dress that were originally imposed
>from without via sumptuary laws became self-imposed sumptuary
>customs.

IE the law becomes so deeply entrenched that people continue to obey
it even when it is no longer actively enforced.

>A good start on researching
> the topic would be Wikipedia, "Sumptuary Law"
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law).

> * In Rome, only the Emperor could wear a cloak or toga of Tyrian purple,
>   and only Roman Senators could wear togas with a Tyrian purple stripe.
>   This was ostensibly because of the great cost of the murex dye. Tyrian
>   purple was also restricted in other places and times, for the same
>   reason.

 The laws were enacted when wealthy non-senators could afford to add
the purple stripes to their togas and started to do so.  Real senators
promptly passed a law to make that illegal.  "Nobody gets a purple
stripe but us."

Most European sumptuary laws were about nobles protecting their social
perks from the increasingly wealthy merchant class, who had a legally
lower social status but increasingly had more money than at least some
of the nobles.

Of course, at some point, flaunting sumptuary laws and being able to
pay the fine for doing so ALSO becomes a status marker, "look at me,
I am ridiculously wealthy, I am so wealthy I can afford these
ridiculously oversize long pointy shoes and the fine for wearing them
in public, ha ha ha."

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan