It is interesting to read all of this about vestments - i.e. gowns and ... clothing. Uniforms, especially restricted to specific church "functionaries." (this is not meant to be disparaging!) Nor are my comments below intended to be critical or negative ... just informative of a different perspective.
I grew up in a "tradition" where no one in the congregation wore special clothing, by reason of his or her roll or position. (In fact many people in some of the churches I attened as a child, had difficulty putting together a full set of clothes without some item in tatters. Some types of garment were worn by both men and women.) In our tradition "in Christ there is neither male nor female, Greek or Jew, slave or free" but all are one in the Lord; leadership was shown through service. Of course, everyone had at least one gift, given by God for contributing to the growth and development of the Body of Christ. If attire of any sort was discussed, it was usually in terms of the armor of God, or being clothed in Christ, or in reference to our attire in the coming kingdom.
The special nature of this kind of christian community was specifically in that no one needed to be distinguished by his or her clothing when they came to church. To say that people didn't have different clothes would be false, and most of the women in fact covered their hair - but most of them did that outside of church also. My point is that no one wore special clothing by virtue of their position in the "church" - where, scriptually speaking, everyone is a priest, a saint, a royal child of the most high God, a brother or sister, and friend of Jesus the Firstborn. Another advantage of this system was that in times of persecution, the persecutors could not identify the "key" leaders by their attire, either in public or in their wardrobes at home. These types of congregations escaped much of the loss of leaders experienced in other denominations where attire exposed their formal church rolls.
Personally, I believe God, through Jesus, wanted to sanctify the ordinary things of life. He turned water to wine, His memory is in bread and wine - the ordinary food (in his time and place) of every meal. He wanted us to see and appreciate the "unseen" members of society, the Good Shepherd was attentive to the one lamb out of 100 animals who wandered off unnoticed, Jesus himself SAW the woman who came to Simon's house and washed his feet with her tears; it was him who SAW the man born blind (in John 9) - and what did he see? - the glory of God made manifest, not a man without sight because of sin. And so ordinary, everyday attire is totally OK, because it releases us of the anxiety of seeking to impress, or even meet some human standard of attire before God. He is more interested in our spiritual than our material attire.
I am aware that the special vestments of various office-bearers in some denominations are meant to speak to people. The colours and patterns, even the cut, has special meaning. But when I attend such churches, I must admit humbly, that instead of drawing my attention to some significant aspect of the person of Christ, the attire tends to distract me from him, and leads me to think of differences, of heirarchies, of personal positions, rather than of unity and one-ness in Christ. Perhaps it's just a matter of my upbringing ... and traditions that by nature I am hardly aware of. !
