Need some advice for a friend

[davedove]

My feelings exactly! I don't think men thought about "fashion" until the last few hundred years or so. Before that it was "whatever works" and I still feel this way.

Well, that depends on who you are talking about. For the common man, I would definitely say that was a true statement. Although, some of them might have had a better set of clothes if they could afford them for special events.

If you consider the aristocracy though, men were often at the forefront of fashion. This would only have been a small subset of all men though.

I have a friend who says:
Is there anything backed by history that I can tell him (he'll listen if it has history backing it)?

You can always challenge him to show his evidence for his position. I'll bet he can't find anything to support it.