> The basic template is the same

It’s obvious you are a tech person who did not study fashion design and don’t know what you’re taking about. No one would use the term template. There are silhouettes and there are patterns (that’s a technical term). There’s a reason Uniqlo is respected by fashion design students, but H&M / Zara is the bane of their existence, and that difference is pattern. Pattern, even more than fabric, is that difference between a $200 designer t-shirt and $5 from H&M. The layman will notice color, maybe a luxury logo, but the trained eye looks for pattern. Pretty much every MFA thesis is pushing the boundaries on pattern and silhouette among other things such as process, and that’s why the garments may appear outlandish. Every decade, a professional fashion designer comes with a distinct silhouette. Unlike students, it is more basic and rudimentary, yet no one has thought of it before. There was Alexander McQueen, now there is Demna Gsvalia, in between there is Raf Simons. Based on the way you’re describing things, I don’t expect you know who any of these people are. Yes, it’s fashion and doesn’t introduce any functional improvements, but the way you’re describing things makes fashion seem superfluous. It’s art yes, and maybe art is superfluous for you, but it’s weird to use analogies on a discipline you don’t really understand. It’s fine if you don’t care or don’t understand or don’t think fashion is important, but don’t think you know what fashion is simply because you wear clothing. I understand this as a naive and hand wavy analogy, but if I were to take it seriously then it’s quite offensive to suggest fashion is unnecessary. It’s the equivalent of a non technical MBA waxing up corporate talking points about Machine Learning or cryptography, or one of those San Francisco Uber drivers who mention their glory days as a tech executive during the Dotcom bubble, but goes in a circle of buzzwords when you ask them about the technical details.

> you can have a totally bespoke and crazy item of clothing made for you by a designer

This reflects your preconceived notions that there is Costco, and then fashion = couturiers. This is not 19th century Paris nor some developing country where rich people go to a local tailor who has a range of fabric in house and makes clothing from scratch.

First, if people are seeking a specific “designer”, they’re going to seek out motifs or a particular style of the designer. At the same time, the designer has their specific approach, and so this is not infinite possibilities of bespokeness.

There’s also nuanced distinction between tailors, designers, couturier, atelier craftspeople, pattern makers, creative director. What you think of “designer” is most likely a creative director at the helm of a fashion label. These people’s skills are management, understanding industry trends, strategically positioning their brand given budget/limited resources, deciding what the art direction for advertising should be, managing / taking risks. Nowadays many of them don’t even design or are capable of working with the garments. It’s the difference between a movie producer and a director of photography. For sufficiently small firms, they might be the same person, but at any sufficiently large project, especially with how much money is involved in fashion, it’s not. These are different roles in the industry, and there are overlap and people can change roles, but most of the time people can’t. It’s like thinking all engineers, or all engineers in tech ( SRE vs SWE), or even all software engineers are interchangeable. In Japan, I see management try to teach designers to become software engineers because to them all people work with computers are equivalent.

> Clothing was also a problem solved

It’s not a solved problem. New fabrics are being developed. Mount Everest, high altitude climbing, winter sports is becoming easier over the decade in part to innovation in clothing and wearables.

Then there is athleisure wear, athletic wear. Fashion is symbiotic with functional improvements. Cowboywear were fashion but also function.

> nice shoes

Just because the shoes are nice looking doesn’t mean there aren’t improvements in comfortability, and function. Allbirds which is liked among the HackerNews crowd just IPO’d in the last year.

Moving past how misunderstood the analogy is, you’re not seeing the value in brand identity and uniqueness. Coca Cola is mostly branding.