The parsis were the first Indian community to adapt western-style of clothing.
Reasons:
(a) They came in close contact with Britishers due to trade links.
(b) They viewed western clothes as a sign of modernity and progress. 

Factors that created pressure for change were:
(i) Introduction of new materials and technologies.
(ii) Two World Wars.
(iii) New working conditions for women.

Traditional feminine clothes were long skirts, voluminous and difficult to handle. They swept the ground, hampered movement and prevented women from working and earning. Thus women reform movements favoured simple dresses, short skirts and abandoning of corsets. Reformers argued in support of clothes which were comfortable and convenient, enabled women to work, earn their living and become independent.

Suffrage movement began in England in the 1830s for Democratic rights, the right to vote. The suffragettes wanted the right for women to vote. 

(i) From childhood they grew up to belive that having a small waist was a womanly duty.
(ii) Suffering pain was essential to being a woman
(iii) To be seen as attractive, to be womanly, they had to wear the corset.
(iv) The torture and pain the corset inflicted on the body was to be accepted as normal.

The ideal woman of the Victorian period was one who could bear pain and suffering, be docile and dutiful, submissive and obedient. Norms of clothing reflected these ideals.
From childhood girls were subject to restrictive style of dresing. The stays and corsets which they wore contained their bodies in small moulds and subjected them to torture, pain and suffering. Thus clothing played a part in creating the image of ideal Victorian woman-frail and submissive.

(i) Stays were support as part of a woman's dress to hold the body straight.
(ii) Young girls in Victorian England were laced up and dressed in stays to restrict the growth of women's bodies and contain them within small moulds. When slightly older girls had to wear tight fitting corsets.
(iii) They helped in creating the image of a delicate docile and frail woman.
(iv) Tightly laced, small waisted women were admired as attractive, elegant and graceful.

Democratic ideals and industrial society broadened people's thinking about dress and its meaning. People now had optionns to use different styles and materials drawn from other cultures and places. The Western dress style for men came to be adoped worldwide.

(a) Fur
(b) Ermine
(c) Velvet
(d) Brocade

(i) Yes the French Revolution brought an end to aristocratic privileges in the country became it marked the end of the sumptuary Laws and all those laws which maintained those privileges.
(ii) However differences between social strata remained.
(iii) Clearly, the poor could not dress like the rich, nor eat the same food. But laws no longer braaed peoples's right to dress in the way they wished.
(iv) Differences in earning rather then Sumptuary Laws, now defined what the rich and poor could wear.
(v) Different classes developed their own culture of dress. The notion of what was beautiful or ugler or improper, decent or vulgar differed., propr

(i) The French Revolution put an end to the 'sumptuary laws'. Members of the Jacobin club, to distinguish themselves from the aristocracy who wore knee breeches, called themselves 'sans culottes'.
(ii) Sans Culottes literally, meant those without knee breeches. Hence, both men and women began wearing loose comfortable clothing.
(iii) Colours of France-blue, white and red-bacame popular. They were regarded as signs of patriotic citizens.
(iv) Other political symbols-red cap of liberty, long trousers, revolutionary cockade pinned on to a hat-became part of the dress code of the French.
Thus, simplicity of clothing was meant to express the revolutionary ideal of equality.

(i) Sans Culottes were members of the Jacobin clubs.
(ii) They tried to distinguish themselves from the aristocracy who wore fashionable 'knee breeches'.
(iii) Sans Culottes literally meant those 'without knee breeches'.

(i) Clothing was strictly regulated by class, gender or status in social hierarchy.
(ii) Only royalty could wear expensive materials like ermine and fur or silk, velvet and brocade. Other classes were debarred from clothing themselves with materials that were associated with aristocracy.
(iii) Most people dressed according to their regional codes and were limited by the types of clothes and the cost of materials.

Before the age of democratic revolutions and development of capitalist markets in 18th century Europe.
(i) Most people dressed according to their regional codes.
(ii) Mode of dress were limited by types of clothes and cost of materials available in their region.
(iii) Clothes were also strictly regulated by class, gender or status in the social hierarchy.

(i) Sumptuary laws (1294 to 1789) were laws which imposed social codes of food and dress upon different strata of society in France.
(ii) These laws were meant to emphasise social hierarchy and control behavior of those considered 'social inferiors', i.r. the unprivileged.
(iii) They prevented social inferiors from wearing certain clothes and consuming certain foods and beverages and hunting game in certain areas associated with the aristocracy.
(iv) In medieval France the items of clothing a person could buy and use for clothing were regulated not only by income but by social rank.
(v) The material to be used for clothing was also legally prescribed. As per these laws only royalty could wear expensive materials like ermine and fur, or silk, velvet and brocade. The other classes were debarred from using these materials.