Reason for clothes

this would be sooooooo cool, plus clothes should just deteorate over time by wearing it, so tailers can really be useful. give it bonuses (would be great with some health mechanics as a protection to not get "i am hurt" debuff) and make it slowly consumable items.

When I think about cloth being useless I think about how different cloth are used for different climate. Let's say you setteled in the desert, you could have a specific outfit that gets you a small XP multiplier but only when you are in the desert, same for mountains, jungle, etc. It would make people from various settlements look distinct from each other and add a little flavor in my opinion. Appart from XP multiplier we could think of various other purposes : on the top of my head I can think of running shoes that would make you run a little faster or reduce running calorie consumption a little. A scuba driving suit that allows to swim better. Boots that allows you to maintain walking speed when walking through vegetation,...

Yeah clothing is so pointless lol. I usually remove everything and eventually get Work Boots and Work Backpack and that's all I ever where. Any other outfit is so inefficient and pointless. So yeah making purpose to clothes would be nice. They could even do stuff like an exp bonus similar to the Food/Housing system but something where the clothing gives a small amount of extra exp on top of that it could maybe give you small labor reductions and crafting speed increases if wearing a specific outfit while the queue is processing kind of like how having an Upgrade Module will effects things when in the stations. Oh yeah I also wear the Camo Clothes if I Plan to hunt at all, but not typically. Also Backpacks should give way more weight hen +5kg/+10kg/+15kg like a backpack legit lets you carry 2-3x more stuff lol if you're not carrying something within a bag. Which also they should add Bags, Purses, and other carriable items. Like when it's time to bring the groceries in I'll carry all 10-20 bags in one trip easy, but they could make it so carriable increase calories spent at the cost of far more weight to carry. Like a work backpack should let you go from the 35kg to 65kg, the big backpack should let you go to like 80kg, and the bear backpack should let you go to 100kg but a modifier that you'll spent the % over in calories more. Then shoes should make you quite a big faster like what even is a 5% increase lol. Basic Shoes should be like 5% sure... Running Shoes should be like 30%. I really see no reason for the Work Boots / Work Backpack, but sure we could keep the Work Boots as a -15% Calories when doing Mining / Woodcutting / Scooping, but doesn't effect movement calories.

I would like if clothing gives more benefits for exp or skill exp, etc. Shoes and Backpacks already have stats, hunter armor too. But not the Engineer, Cook, Farmer... This will give ppl a reason to buy clothes from the tailor.

Clothes should also be available from the start. By the time a tailor can make a farmer's overall, everyone already knows who the farmers are. Any kind of stats will make clothes wanted. Instead of just the camo gear and head lamp, tailors could actually sell clothes instead of just ropes for boats and cloth for windmills.

It looks cool when the cook wears a chefhat. But most players don't bother crafting or buying clothes other than the boots, lamp helmet and camo gear. People need stats or bonuses to use things. Too bad for the people who spent days designing the smithy apron and lumberjack shirt if players don't use those.

For now there exists a mod that does this for those who want it. Can probably gleem some ideas from it too. https://mod.io/g/eco/m/clothing-overhaul1

The tailor could make a mending kit so players could darn their clothes - giving them an ongoing job. It could be like whetstones are in some mods so people can repair their own tools.

Clothing could also be specialized and grant xp gain bonuses for specialties (not stars)

maybe add clothing to the culture or rep bonus

I second this. It would give the tailor a more permanent provider role and as a bonus its stimulating the economy, since there is going to be a consistent need for cotton and other fabrics.