There were three young women at my paternal uncle's funeral in strapless dresses with very short skirts (clearly prom dresses - due to the satin, lace, sequins, or rhinestone trimmings). All three were relatives....great-nieces of the deceased (no grandchildren).
Having been raised by a preacher & his wife and heavily influenced by my grandmothers, who had very old fashioned, even 19th century attitudes and (or at least pre-1960s) preferences on what was appropriate for various events for THEIR children, grandchildren, etc. to wear - I was wondering what their parents were thinking. Because "prom dresses" may be "dress clothes" but they aren't what I would think of as "funeral clothes".
One young woman had a dressy jacket on, so that the fact that the dress was strapless was not quite a blatant...but it was still short enough to have been worn by one of the women on Star Trek, the original series. Just a little fancier than would be seen on a uniform, due to the black lace bodice and overskirt.
Not everyone was wearing black - some of the men wore dark gray suits or even just a white shirt, a tie, and black or dark gray dress pants. Most, not all, of the women had something black on - jewelry, a print that had black in it, but while not everyone was wearing "mourning" colors - no one was wearing really casual garments, either.
As to my "fascination" with what people are wearing - I've been like this since I was in elementary school and tried to "recognize" people I was introduced to based on what they were wearing. I am not face blind - but due to an interest in sewing - clothing attracts my attention more than it does the attention of other people.
I can't help noticing. I have learned that I can help opening my mouth and ASKING if they know that their hem came out, a button is missing, or that the red mending thread is showing on their gray pants at the center back seam.....so I didn't say anything there (nobody else was likely to have a sewing kit in their purse, with matching thread).
I know that the older generations are more "formal" than the younger people, and I do recognize that I am now in the "older generation" in my fifties.
But is this drift to more casual clothes and reducing the number of "categories" of clothing to three (or even two) going too far?
I see "dress clothes" for many people seem to range from "Sunday", "Party", "Evening", and "Formal Work Clothes" which seems to include blazers over pants - which used to be informal. Then there is a category that I would call "Comfortable Informal" - polo shirts, jeans, sundresses, and the like. Followed by "Casual" - which includes what used to be worn clothes saved for painting, gardening, and other sweaty tasks.....and starts as an overlap on the less fitted end of comfortable informal...where they used to be separate categories.