Was it just more expensive to make and denoted wealth
yes but also some courts did dress codes because centralized monarchs liked distracting the nobility & eating their surplus income on non-rebellious things like parties, gambling, and clothes. it could also serve ideological goals like making the country seem more ‘enlightened’—Peter in Russia particularly did that trying to import french palace culture
There was a department making sure it spends all of its budget so it doesn’t get cut the next year angle to the liquidating of the surplus of lower level nobility. If you were caught sitting on a bunch of peasant plunder then you’d have to kick up more.
Was there a specific historical reason for this style, though? Was it just more expensive to make and denoted wealth?
yes but also some courts did dress codes because centralized monarchs liked distracting the nobility & eating their surplus income on non-rebellious things like parties, gambling, and clothes. it could also serve ideological goals like making the country seem more ‘enlightened’—Peter in Russia particularly did that trying to import french palace culture
There was a department making sure it spends all of its budget so it doesn’t get cut the next year angle to the liquidating of the surplus of lower level nobility. If you were caught sitting on a bunch of peasant plunder then you’d have to kick up more.