It was gorgeous and colourful, but highly impersonal. Traditional clothing, almost by definition, isn't really an enabler of personal style and expression. And you can't really compare traditional clothing to day-to-day clothing, these are entirely different purposes and codes.
Day-to-day clothing is definitely not "all just tshirts" nowadays, even in the mainstream. Women fashion is very varied, and while men's fashion is a lot poorer there's still a huge spectrum of expressive clothing that's available. I don't think personal style and expression has ever been as available and encouraged as it is today.
> It was gorgeous and colourful, but highly impersonal.
So is mass-produced clothing. Go into any store, and you will see the same shit with very few variations. For actual personality you have to search for niche/hand-made/small-productions etc.
Huh? At least where I from, you got cloth decorated by a person who did not produced copies the way machines do. That person was frequently you yourself.
> And you can't really compare traditional clothing to day-to-day clothing, these are entirely different purposes and codes.
I would interpret traditional clothing as "clothing they traditionally wore". It was not a uniform.