"Death is not the end"

Just because you're dead doesn't mean that you should stop being well dressed. A part of being well dressed in life is being dressed appropriately for the occasion. If you belong(ed) to the elite levels of the social hierarchy, you will also like to be well dressed in death. Gerhard Altzenbach's copper engraving "Der Tod als Edelfrau" (1630) is a good example of how to leave this world in style. Particularly note the bouquet of dead flowers. In our world, appearance is everything and quite absolute. Well, not entirely absolute since reality is context-dependent. Dressing badly can be a useful signalling device. It could send the signal: I have better things to do than thinking of what I'm wearing. Or, I'm part of a subculture where dressing badly is normative and used for identification and/or affiliation. In an episode of Seinfeld, Jerry explains to George "You know the message you're sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You're telling the world, 'I give up. I can't compete in normal society. I'm miserable, so I might as well be comfortable." If you decide to start dressing well you're giving up the possibilty to imply that nobody taught you how to dress well and you haven't thought of learning it yourself. Or implying that you don't have the necessary resources to keep up. A lot of signaling depends on what your people already know about you. Showing up in sweatpants is a low point. You have to preserve your last scrap of dignity. Wearing sweatpants at home and alone should be allowed. But never in any other cases. This should provide a good working strategy, and also ensure a sufficiently high minimum level. Death is not the end, but wearing sweatpants in public is. If the dead are more concerned than you are about how they are dressed, you need to reevaluate your life choices.