If we trace back to before ready-to-wear clothing, garments were originally not much different, all just rolls of cloth dumbly squeezed on the counters of fabric stores. But after the skillful hands of a tailor, simple things become complicated, because then there's Ah Q's felt hat, Kong Yiji's long gown; there's also Third Immortal Maiden's embroidered jacket and Comrade Lao Yang's two-and-a-half catty shoes. With the difference in clothes, there comes the difference in people. Because most people have performed or are currently performing the farce of judging people by their clothes, such as love at first sight in modern marriages, which poets extol with great effort, but this reflects a shallow way of looking at problems limited to the surface. Love doesn't need decoration; not decorating is the best decoration. Yet this shallowness is widespread, there was Mathilde, who thought it was embarrassing to attend a ball without luxurious clothing and expensive jewelry; and there were the Philips couple, who ran away when they saw their shabbily dressed younger brother Yule, but who can guarantee that Yule wasn't disguised for fear of pickpockets while actually carrying ten thousand cash? Running away is too shallow, it would be better to send someone to investigate. At this point, we remember Andersen's emperor, who probably had an obsession with new clothes, or could be said to have a particular fondness for clothing, but unfortunately, the opulent attire couldn't cover up his foolish essence.
As for clothes, there's Quasimodo, the bell-ringer in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", wearing the "cowherd's garment" described by Su Dongpo, while the priest appears morally upright and neatly dressed, yet their qualities are exactly opposite. From this, we see that the art of observing people should focus on the heart rather than clothing, and expanding further, seeing a woman showing her chest and back doesn't necessarily mean she's promiscuous, and seeing a man with long hair and peculiar costumes doesn't necessarily mean he's a rogue. Because this is somewhat vulgar; haven't heard that art academies find the most promiscuous people to be models. So what we need to remember is: "Clothes are just clothes."
As for the purpose of wearing clothes, there may be disputes over avoiding cold, covering shame, aesthetics, and marking status. Actually, such disputes are unnecessary, because the purpose of wearing clothes cannot be defined by a single function and must vary from person to person. For example, a penniless beggar wearing clothes is unlikely to consider aesthetic factors, and a noblewoman facing a mountain of clothes yet sighing about having nothing to wear probably doesn't need to worry about staying warm. Nowadays, there are more people spending money like water, and clothing stores cater to their preferences, quickly increasing the price of clothes from one-digit or two-digit numbers to four or even five digits. In order to show off "I'm richer than you," they don't hesitate to spend a lot of money to buy clothes, but often the feeling people get after they wear them isn't necessarily beautiful. A person's beauty comes naturally, like a beautiful lotus emerging from clear water, and clothes at most serve as embellishments, like flowers complemented by green leaves. Would we really buy a set of golden silk and jade clothes if we had ten thousand in wealth? Don't you know that showing off ends up making us look like ancient relics. As for the function of clothes being to cover shame, it seems to have some reason, because shame originates from a primitive emotion common to all humans knowing good and evil, existing as long as humans exist. However, where the shame lies seems to differ. When a naked woman is seen, Malay women will cover their navels, some African women will cover their buttocks, Arab women will cover their heads and hair, Chinese women will cover their feet and legs, and Egyptian women will cover their faces. If an Egyptian woman has no other covering object, she would rather lift her skirt and expose her lower body than let anyone see her face. Therefore, habits and customs give different definitions to whether dressing appropriately, new women's fashion. Wearing clothes is not the result of human shame of nudity, but wearing clothes produces this sense of shame.