Reply To: When did dressing "yeshivish" start?

One of my Rebbeim gave a shiur on wearing hats for davening. He quoted R’ Moshe Shternbuch who said that hats are still choshuv nowadays. When JFK took his off, he wasn’t saying you don’t need a hat to look choshuv, he was saying you don’t need to look choshuv because I’m not a king, I’m one of you guys. Similar to Obama taking off his jacket in the oval office, he wasn’t saying you don’t need a jacket to look choshuv, he was saying I’m not really a king, I’m a regular guy like you, and you don’t need to dress choshuv in front of me. R’ Shternbuch said if there really was a king you would be wearing hats and jackets, therefore you have to wear it for davening, it’s just that nowadays there are no kings. My rebbe said that works well for jackets (and presumably ties also), but hats… even if there was a realy king no one would wear hats, it’s no longer a choshuv way of dress, it’s out of style (I’m assuming my rebbe would extend that to walking in the street… and he happens to wear a hat for davening, but for purposes of atifah [based on the psak of R’ Herschel Shachtar] not for the purposes of chashivus)

“The current style of yeshivish dress hearkens back to the Alter of Slabodka, who encouraged his students to dress like middle class European business men; a hat, jacket, pressed trousers and a waistcoat. He felt that if his students dressed and looked dignified, they would act dignified and their characters would be refined in the process. “

Why did the Alter of Slobodka say this? Is it because:

a) hats and jackets are inherently choshuv and it just so happens that European businessmen of the 19th century had the greatest sense of style in history?

b) He just happened to live in that time period and that was the choshuv dress of that time. Had he lived in the 12th or 21st century the Yeshivish dress code of today would have been much different?

c) He saw some special quality in the goyish businessmen of the 19th century and allowed them to set the dress code of yeshivah bochurim from that time onward?