She has walked out of the third robe shop when she says "why is everyone here trying to sell stuff like that? Are they all on commission? I'm used to bored clerks working for minimun wage who might help me pick between two cuts of jeans and are not nearly invested enough to bullshit me."

"This is only a conjecture, but perhaps, in your home country, merchants are less picky about ensuring sellers have high levels of sales Skills, or there are fewer sellers with high levels of selling Skill to be found?  I can see how the situation here might grate on somebody not used to it."

"Somehow I was foolishly optimistic that sales skills would involve less lying and more, I don't know, telling me that olive green or whatever is good for my skin tone."

"We're getting into the kind of thing that other people sometimes tell me I'm not good at understanding.  But I think that words uttered in sales aren't really... supposed to be mutually agreed to be referential in the same sense as ordinary language?  There's some kind of weird thing going on where the salesguy telling you about how the cloak was a drop from a Queen Chameleon Slime is... trying to display their skill at performing and this somehow causes other people to be willing to pay a higher price?  I don't actually understand it, and my approach is to call bullshit in a way that sounds like I actually have definite knowledge and am using it rather than putting on a counter-performance.  Sometimes I have to walk out, but sometimes they give me a strange and half-pitying look and switch to using words that mean things."

"Is there such a thing as a person who I can hire to take all my measurements, send to do my shopping for me, and tip if they get something I find satisfactory for under some amount of money?"

"Probably.  No clue where to find one who wouldn't just rip you off... well, now that I'm actually thinking about it, I can think of one or two women I share a class with who'd know somebody like that and wouldn't be on the take for a cut of the commission after recommending one to you."  Haroun actually finds it kind of odd that Bella expects to be able to walk into a different dimension and immediately be good at shopping there, but he's not quite sure how to inquire about this.  "Maybe buy one outfit today that looks good to you, and expect that a week later you'll know how to buy a better outfit?  There's people at Cowcorn who are very much the prisoner of their first impressions, but Magister Sting is very good at looking past them and Professor Nightstar is very good at seeing through them.  Or you could find a shop with outfits that look roughly right to you, and just frankly tell them you're from another country, new to Cowcorn, and could they please be nice to you and help you assemble an outfit that sends the following exact message.  You'd be taking a risk, but sometimes people will be nice if you ask them explicitly to be nice."  Haroun sighs.  His mind has made another suggestion and he really wishes it had been less creative.  "Or alternatively," he says with a certain amount of dread, but she is the Summoned One, and he is trying to be a good destined companion and tell her about all her options, "we could find one of my academic friends who knows more about fashion, and ask them to help you shop."

"I think I want to own more than two total outfits for the ensuing week. I'm used to just having four of the kind of pants and fourteen of the kind of shirt you saw me in when I landed, in different colors - more the shirts than the pants, the pants are just different shades of blue - and replacing them when they wear out, ideally with more of the same, sometimes without even physically walking into a store and definitely without having to know how to haggle. And this communicated 'does not spend a whole lot of time thinking about clothes', and that was fine because I wasn't on a quest to recruit and filter allies and suchlike. But that sounds otherwise like a decent mix of strategies, I'll ask nicely at the next robe shop and see if they help and I at least have the prices I was quoted at the last three to compare. Might circle back to the second one if that doesn't pan out and get the olive green I almost took. Then maybe meet your friends."

The next magical-clothing shop has a saleslady who at least appears warm and thoughtful.  Of course, appearing warm and thoughtful is an essential Social Skill.

And not the kind that can't work on Bella, even! Still. "Hey, I'm from a foreign country and I'm not used to caring very much about what I wear, but I'm planning to start taking classes at the school soon and I don't want to be in these when I'm meeting new people, especially not every day. I don't need to wear what the Queen's wearing, I'm not trying to tell everyone I'm some kind of princess? But I'd like to know what's legible to people as what, around here. Something sort of in the general genre of adventuress-y sorceress robes seems like the right place to start but the details are lost on me. I'm going for, like, smart, practical, not inexplicably courting boob sunburn, and also I know if my dad were here he'd be fretting about everything and telling me to get the arrow-proofing but maybe that can be added after the fact on something otherwise right?"

The saleslady seems surprised at first, and then snickers.  "Not inexplicably courting boob sunburn.  Nice.  I'll have to remember that one."  She gives Bella a measured look and seems to think for a bit.  "Smart, practical... hm.  Can you clarify what you intend to say to people with full chest coverage?  Do you want to look unapproachable, or like you're deliberately contradicting the current fashion trends in upper chest exposure for women, or do you have a personal preference about chests only and would still be interested in looking seductive in other ways?"

"I don't want to look, like, unfriendly? But I am not on the market, I'm concentrating on my education, people should not hit on me."

"Hm.  Something of a contradiction in terms.  Too many people take a lack of visible unfriendliness as an opportunity, hence an invitation.  I can try to thread the needle.(*)  Does your outfit need to match that sword?  Are you planning to wear that guildplate openly?  I was going to ask about whether the arrow-proofing aspect indicated an interest in Adventurer style, but a sword and guildplate already locks down that aspect if it's your intent.  For that matter, are you interested in clothing suitable for actual dungeoneering as well as being fashionable?  Self-cleaning, default dark colors?"

(*) Lit. "Blast an egg from a thousand paces."

"I didn't even know outfits matching swords was a thing, but yes, I suppose it does. I wasn't going to prominently display the guildplate for any non-tax-related purpose unless there's some reason I should. Uh, suitability for dungeoneering is good but I do mostly plan to be wearing my wardrobe to school."

It's hard to make out what Bella's budget is by looking at her.  The sword looks expensive, or at least the hilt and scabbard and belt look platinum-tier at least.  The worn clothing might fit well in a businesslike way on an older and larger Adventurer... borrowed, probably.  Also, the girl is very hard to read, but shows no sign of having achieved this through having high-level Social Skills of her own.  Her tinplate is very recent and may not reflect her actual level.

Might as well try and give her what she asked for, in the highest-grade version in stock, and see how she reacts.

The saleslady assembles an outfit.  Sensible pants and boots with full leg coverage between them, alternating between treated giant-magical-snake-skin for the main panels and high-flexibility gormsilk fabric around the joints.  Matching snakeskin shirt, barely loose enough to not look skintight, also with gormsilk around the elbows and shoulders.  Matching nonenchanted gormsilk gloves.  Matching lightly enchanted spidersilk skirt that goes over the pants and comes down to around Bella's knees.

Enchantments on everything except the gloves and skirt:  Minor durability, slow self-cleaning, rapid sweat vanishing, minor temperature regulation for moderate climates only, minor shrinking-expansion on the snakeskin panels so as to fit anyone with Bella's rough body shape, and chromashift to serve as either fashionwear or dungeonwear (the saleslady recommends white-blue to signal practicality and not signal approachability, it will look a little standoffish but that can't really be helped).  The spidersilk skirt has self-cleaning and chromashift only.  The gormsilk gloves aren't enchanted of themselves, they're too small for that to be done cheaply, but they're gormsilk so they can have their color changed by anyone who knows this simple tier-1 tailoring spell that uses half a mana, which most tailors will be happy to use for five copper or so.

It can all be Bella's for just five platinum!

The saleslady makes no mention of trying to sell Bella more than one outfit; it probably hasn't occurred to her that Bella would want more than one of an outfit with self-cleaning and chromashift.

Bella is coming around to the idea of not owning more than one outfit because if she has one outfit that is suitable for all occasions she NEVER HAS TO BE LIED TO BY A CLOTHING SALESPERSON AGAIN. "Do the snakes have 『Qualia』? Do the spiders or the, uh, gorms? Are gorms an animal?"

Giant magical snakes of this particular species allegedly don't have 『Qualia』.  Neither do giant magical spiders of this species.  All of this silk was ethically obtained by buying it from the gorms themselves.

Bella wants to try it on and see if it's comfy. Finding that it is comfy and she can move around in it okay she wants to know if the gloves are essential, she isn't used to them.

The gloves are fashion-gloves, like the overskirt, not to be worn into dungeons.  Gloves that let you disable traps with no loss of dexterity are a higher tier of adventuring gear than this outfit belongs to.  Bella could in principle wear the skirt but not the gloves; it would look slightly odd but not in a standout way.  She could also wear neither the skirt nor the gloves, but then she'll look more like an Adventurer attending school, and less like a platinum-tier wealthy sorceress with an intended profession that requires her to visit dungeons to level her Skills.

"I think I'll leave the gloves, I think I'd leave them off most of the time anyway and that'd be a waste of money."

The saleslady shrugs.  "No discount.  It's meant as part of a matching set.  And if you don't mind my saying so, I'm quite sure that you will encounter future situations where you wish you had the option of matching gloves."

"In what situation will I wish I had the option of matching gloves?"

"Oh, any kind of formal gathering, where it is presumed that you have put effort into speccing an outfit that says something about you.  Leaving off the gloves in those circumstances would stand out quite visibly.  These are nonenchanted gloves in any case - should you require a replacement it will come to a few gold, nothing worth fretting over."

"And if I tell you I have not been invited to any formal gathering I suppose I know what you'd say about that. Ugh. Haroun, eyeball* the price for me -?"

*lit. to nudge with one's foot

Haroun shrugs with moderate helplessness.  "Seems pricey but not pricier than I'd expect.  I'm noticing some amount of internal pressure from wanting the shopping trip to be done, so you might not want to trust me fully on that."

(The saleslady snickers again.)

"Yeah I'm also really sick of clothes shopping. This is good for going to school, walking into a dungeon, attending some wholly hypothetical fancy party? I don't have to think about clothes again for a few years at least if I have other stuff on my mind?" she asks the saleslady.