Happy WBW! What type of clothing is popular in your WIP and why? Bonus, tell me something cool/fun/interesting about it! (Could be how it's made, how it's worn, if it's fashionable, etc)
(Thanks so much for this ask and my apologies for waiting to answer it until STS!)
Ooh, ok, so the existence of werewolves (feran) in my society has done a ton of cool things to clothes. The most important to the story is the gefalten, which is a suit of leather armor that has pleats which expand to fit a feran's brode (hybrid) form:
It comes with boots called teilen that have leather panels that shift and slide around to accompany wider, digitigrade feet. These armor sets are most commonly worn by a group of feran holy warriors called the Wolfguard who are loyal to the Seerish church. In fact, this armor in this color specifically is kind of seen as a holy vestment.
The Wolfguard are kind of the exception when it comes to feran people in this setting, though. Most feran fall at the bottom of the social totem pole, and Morgenhausen fashion has some pretty strong racial lines.
Most feran are not warriors and don't need armor, but they do have to deal with the fact that their body will push them to transform about once a month (not in the light of the moon, that's just a story. Transformations can happen any time of day.) And some others use their brode form intentionally for gain (as hunters, for example, or in self-defense). Because of the size change, those who need to be free to transform used to wear looser clothing. This would amount to baggier tops, a specialized kind of belt that has a snap that lets it change to a set larger size when a little force is applied, loose pants, and maybe even some teilen boots if you had the money for them. If you didn't have a lot of money, clothing appropriate for a transfiguration might be the only clothes you had, and you'd wear them day in, day out.
This was a pretty distinct look, and because of its bottom-class/feral werewolf associations, it became gauche for anyone else to dress in loose, billowy clothing while in public. In fact, the upper classes got a thing for really tight, perfectly-tailored clothing that matches your physique. Not quite corsetry, but lots of panels and darts. Lots of buttons and laces. Maybe your shirt is long enough to have a bit of a skirt on it, but the top emphasizes the body under it.
Of course, if you were a feran person trying your best to make your way in the world and get that promotion in the guard or make sure the foreman took you seriously, then you had a problem. Because sometimes you needed to wear the big shirt, so you didn't wind up half-naked on the street during your time of the month, or so you would be able to defend yourself if necessary, but you couldn't just go to work or that party in a floursack, you also gotta look smart to impress the humans.
So pleated and folded clothing became popular, in styles like the tache shirt, which are kinda like the fabric version of a gefalten, but with a lot more variation. These kinds of garments are designed to fluff out big enough for a brode form, while still fold/pleat/wrapping around the body in a way that makes the extra fabric mostly invisible when in your human form, especially if you wear a nice jacket over the top or something.
It's not quite the same thing as what the humans are wearing, but it's respectable, and being seen as respectable (and therefore not dangerous) is important enough to collective social survival that many feran people will police each other over wearing this style, instead of the loose style.
















