A few of the ways in which class distinctions were initially maintained through dress were restrictions of clothing and jewelry based on a purchaser's occupation, income or creed, or by "impos[ing] distinguishing marks on particular categories of persons" (Hunt 1996: 419). The latter included the colored patches, bells and special hats that prostitutes in 14th century England were forced to wear. According to one 16th century historian, in 1355, an English statute was enacted whereby "'no known whore should weare from thenceforth any hood, except reyed or striped of divers colors, nor furre, but garments reversed or turned the wrong side outward upon paine to forfeit the same'" (quoted in Baldwin 1926: 34). Brands of a much more permanent sort were also applied to vagabonds. Their chests were branded with a "V," whereas fugitives were branded with an "F" on the forehead for "falsity." In Japan, truants' bodies were tattooed with the names of their offenses.

Dress restrictions based on income were notorious in Japan. According to Lafcadio Hearn,

A farmer with a property assessed at twenty koku (of rice) was not allowed to build a house more than thirty-six feet long, or to use in building it such superior qualities of wood as keyaki or hinoki. The roof of his house was to be made of bamboo thatch or straw; and he was strictly forbidden the comfort of floor mats. On the occasion of the wedding of his daughter he was forbidden to have fish or any roasted food served at the wedding feast. The women of his family were not allowed to wear leather sandals: they might wear only straw sandals or wooden clogs; and the thongs of the sandals or the clogs were to be made of cotton. Women were further forbidden to wear hair bindings of silk, or hair ornaments of tortoise-shells; but they might wear wooden combs and combs of bone -not ivory. The men were forbidden to wear stockings, and their sandals were to be made of bamboo. They were also forbidden to use sunshades, or paper umbrellas (quoted in Ross, 1919).

But much to the chagrin of the aristocracy, sumptuary laws based on income weren't enough to curb "crimes of extravagance." As mercantilists gained economic strength in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries, they became able to afford the outward trappings of wealth—expensive clothing and jewelry. In short, they began to resemble the upper class. As the wife of Phillippe le Bel, upon making her dramatic entrance in to Bruges in 1301 amidst flocks of well-dressed subjects, said, "I thought I was the Queen, but I see there are hundreds" (Hurlock 1965: 296). Feeling threatened by these outward displays of affluence, aristocracies began to feel the need to redefine the increasingly blurred boundaries between the classes. When sumptuary laws based on income were not sufficient to maintain distinction, governments drafted laws that restricted dress based on class. In one of the first recorded documents of its kind in England, Queen Elizabeth, re-enforcing the wishes of her father, Henry VIII, issued a proclamation outlining the acceptable dress of her subjects, based on their class:

None shall weare in his Apparell any Cloth of {gold, sylver, of tincele} satin, sylke, or cloth myxte with gold or sylver, nor any sables. Except Earles, and all of superior degrees, and Viscountes and Barons in theyr doblets and sleveless coates... (Baldwin, 218).

According to El Guindi (1999: 14), the wearing of a veil was another prescribed form of dress that delineated the classes:

Using the primary source for Assyrian law (the Code in English translation[)] it becomes evident how Assyrian law reveals a connection between veiling and social stratification. It states which women must and which could not veil. Exploring a number of relevant laws once can discern the following differentiations: 'ladies-by-birth' (noble women) versus 'concubines and servants;' respectable, married women versus 'harlots;' free women versus slaves. Law 40 [...] states that: 'Women, whether married or [widows] or [Assyrians] who go out into the (public) street [must not have] their heads [uncovered]. Ladies by birth...whether (it is ) a veil (?) or robe or [mantle?], must be veiled; [they must not have] their head [uncovered].'

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