While modesty of apparel is often discussed and probably it is foolish of me to expect things not to stray too far from the OP, so whatever license the authorities here at SI grant for sidebars then have at it, but as for the intent of the thread I wanted to post a portion of one of Tertullian's essays, specifically a chapter concerning feminine modesty and their apparel and get some response specifically to Tertullian's language and view. I enjoy having immediate access online to so much literature both from the early church and any subsequent period but particularly the first 5 centuries and here Tertullian uses some interesting language and thought it would be worthwhile to get responses as to the essay.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0402.htm
If there dwelt upon earth a faith as great as is the reward of faith which is expected in the heavens, no one of you at all, best beloved sisters, from the time that she had first "known the Lord," and learned (the truth) concerning her own (that is, woman's) condition, would have desired too gladsome (not to say too ostentatious) a style of dress; so as not rather to go about in humble garb, and rather to affect meanness of appearance, walking about as Eve mourning and repentant, in order that by every garb of penitence she might the more fully expiate that which she derives from Eve,— the ignominy, I mean, of the first sin, and the odium (attaching to her as the cause) of human perdition. "In pains and in anxieties do you bear (children), woman; and toward your husband (is) your inclination, and he lords it over you." And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert— that is, death— even the Son of God had to die. And do you think about adorning yourself over and above your tunics of skins? Come, now; if from the beginning of the world the Milesians sheared sheep, and the Serians spun trees, and the Tyrians dyed, and the Phrygians embroidered with the needle, and the Babylonians with the loom, and pearls gleamed, and onyx-stones flashed; if gold itself also had already issued, with the cupidity (which accompanies it), from the ground; if the mirror, too, already had licence tolie so largely, Eve, expelled from paradise, (Eve) already dead, would also have coveted these things, I imagine! No more, then, ought she now to crave, or be acquainted with (if she desires to live again), what, when she was living, she had neither had nor known. Accordingly these things are all the baggage of woman in her condemned and dead state, instituted as if to swell the pomp of her funeral.-
Tertullian, for a date references should be placed about 200 AD.
Well I have formed a new postulate:
Tertullian gains little traction.
So for what it is worth, as I read Tertullian's writings he seems to be an ascetic of sorts or what today is called a legalist, though I prefer ascetic. Later in the particular essay he chided men for shaving too closely and even questioned the virtues of those of dyeing garments.
That said, I cannot say that Tertullian was infected in all places with this sort of heavy asceticism or piousness. In some places he expounds quite well on some doctrinal and practical issues and regarding our Lord, his faithful words and zeal are edifying.
Now, you gateways of the devil, be at your rest.
My blog:
http://thepedestrianchristian.blogspot.com/