Guys used to shave their legs because they wore silk stockings. Once knee breeches went out of fashion they quit shaving their legs.
Now that a "well turned leg" is back in style so is shaving.
I really hope powdered hair is not the next thing to make a comeback.
Yes, men used to have much more style before the civil war era.
They obviously were secure enough in their manhood not to worry about being too colorful, God forbid.
As for powdered wigs, tey weren’t quite as heavily used by our American rebels simply because they could not afford or easily obtain them. However, many did powder their own hair quite a bit.
But I dare anyone to call George Washington or even John Adams a sissy.
Wow I didn’t realize that they actually shaved their legs. So the knickerbocker thing and the Founding Fathers were shaving their legs? That’s almost depressing. The wig thing was bad enough. I hope wigs don’t come back too.
Freegards
After the fall of Rome ( I won'/t go into all of the ablutions, waxings ( they used honey back then ), makeup, etc. used/done back then ) Christian Europe stopped doing a lot of things; however, women tweezed their head hair lines, because high foreheads were supposedly a sign of intelligence. That went out of favor too, until the Elizabethan Age, at which point, no eyebrows, on women were also in vogue.
As for men, this was a time in both the English and French courts, where many men wore earrings.
I can give you a decade by decade, until present day, various different "ins" and "outs" in sartorial changes, but hopefully, this is enough to satisfy you.