That Egyptian woman of old was adorned; Joseph too was adorned; which of them was the more beautiful? I say not when she was in the palace, and he in the prison. He was naked, but clothed in the garments of chastity; she was clothed, but more unseemly than if she had been naked; for she had not modesty. When you have excessively adorned you, O woman, then you have become more unseemly than a naked one; for you have stripped you of your fair adorning. Eve also was naked; but when she had clothed herself, then was she more unseemly, for when she was naked indeed, she was adorned with the glory of God; but when she had clothed herself with the garment of sin, then was she unseemly. And thou, when arraying yourself in the garment of studied finery, dost then appear more unseemly. For that costliness avails not to make any appear beautiful, but that it is possible even for one dressed out to be even more unseemly than if naked, tell me now; if you had ever put on the dresses of a piper or a flute-player, would it not have been unseemliness? And yet those dresses are of gold; but for this very reason it were unseemliness, because they are of gold. For the costliness suits well with people on the stage, tragedians, players, mimes, dancers, fighters with wild beasts; but to a woman that is a believer, there are given other robes from God, the Only-Begotten Son of God Himself. “For,” he says, “as many as were baptized into Christ, did put on Christ.” Tell me, if one had given you kingly apparel, and you had taken a beggar's dress, and put this on above it, would you not, besides the unseemliness, have also been punished for it? You have put on the Lord of Heaven, and of the Angels, and are you still busied about earth?
I have spoken thus, because love of ornament is of itself a great evil, even were no other gendered by it, and it were possible to hold it without peril, (for it incites to vainglory and to pride,) but now many other evils are gendered by finery, evil suspicions, unseasonable expenses, evil speakings, occasions of rapacity. For why do you adorn yourself? Tell me. Is it that you may please your husband? Then do it at home. But here the reverse is the case. For if you would please your own husband, please not others; but if you please others, you will not be able to please your own. So that you should put away all your ornaments, when you go to the forum or proceedest to the church. Besides, please not your husband by those means which harlots use, but by those rather which wives that are free employ. For wherein, tell me, does a wife differ from a harlot? In that the one regards one thing only, namely, that by the beauty of her person she may attract to herself him whom she loves; while the other both rules the house, and shares in the children, and in all other things.
Have you a little daughter? Look to it lest she inherit the mischief, for they are wont to form their manners according to their nurture, and to imitate their mothers' behavior. Be a pattern to your daughter of modesty, deck yourself with that adorning, and see that thou despise the other; for that is in truth an ornament, the other a disfigurement. Enough has been said. Now God that made the world, and has given to us the ornament of the soul, adorn us, and clothe us with His own glory, that all shining brightly in good works, and living unto His glory, we may send up glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and always, etc.
Source: Homilies on Colossians (New Advent)