From our hairstyles to our shoes, constitutional considerations both constrain and confirm our daily choices. In turn, our attire and appearance provide multilayered perspectives on the United States Constitution and its interpretations. Dress raises a plethora of constitutional concerns. In addition to the First Amendment issues of expressive speech or religion that come most immediately to mind, our apparel prompts problems of equal protection based on classifications of sex/gender and race. Moreover, our habiliments and the profits to be made from their production, trade, and consumption have motivated important constitutional revisions of both doctrine and text. The intertwining of our clothes and our Constitution raise fundamental questions of hierarchy, sexuality, and democracy.

While we most often do not think our wardrobe selections are of constitutional magnitude, the legal regulation of dress is ubiquitous. The most obvious regulations are direct ones: laws criminalizing indecent exposure; laws prescribing and proscribing military uniforms; or regulations detailing the attire of government employees, prisoners, or public school students. Less obvious are the more indirect ways in which the law constrains our apparel. Our daily choices of how to look and what to wear are circumscribed by legal doctrines that fail to protect women from sexual violence, or limit antidiscrimination laws, or allow law enforcement officers and judges wide discretion to consider our appearance. Additionally, our available options of apparel in the marketplace are the product of legal forces. All of these provoke constitutional issues.