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[martinuzz]

For the last two forts, I've started to employ the tactic of periodic second hand clothing giveaway protocols, which drastically reduces the need to produce clothing items, thus helping FPS.
Clothing items will get used instead of being hoarded, and cluttering up cabinets.

What I do: Once or twice a year, I d-b-f over all my dwarves' owned cabinets to forbid all stored clothing in them.
I then wait a month for ownership to decay, and reclaim it all.

This will cause all XXitemsXX to be hauled to the refuse stockpile, where they'll decay, and all other clothing to be hauled to a stockpile, and then redistributed amongst your dwarves.
A dwarf will get a new item if
- it is available
- it is of better quality / condition than a currently worn item

So basically, you will see dwarves toss their oldest rags into their cabinets for the next giveaway round, and replace them with slightly better second handers, plus getting happy thoughts from putting on a new item if it's of decent quality.

The benefit of letting XXclothingXX decay over trading it away (at least for this release) is that decay in a refuse stockpile does not cause a masterwork loss event.

EDIT: basically, what this comes down to, is that instead of each dwarf owning 50 or more (and eternally growing) pieces of clothing after some time, you'll keep that number down to 12 plus some spares (I only give my dwarves a dress, cloak, shoes, cap and trousers, but I guess you could remove the cloak and still have all parts that can cause bad thoughts covered, bringing it down to 10 plus some spares). That's about 4000 less items bothering your FPS on a 100 dwarf population, more the older your fort gets.

[steel jackal]

i myself like to make everyones bedroom a refuse stockpile that only accepts from links, and dosnt have any links
then allow clothing to be stored in it, enable refuse but disable all the types of refuse

this way all dwarves clothes decay automatically

i also dont have any clothing stockpiles, just a clothiers workshop that is always producing clothes
that way the clutter will make the dwarf keep up with supply and demand

high clutter = most dwarves have clothes and so not much are made
low clutter = dwarves need clothes so more are made

[Telgin]

I've tried something similar by making all of the bedrooms refuse stockpiles, but if I recall correctly it didn't get everything.  Dwarves had a tendency to dump junk on their beds, which I'd have to occasionally clean up manually using the forbid method in the OP.

I may try the technique in the OP soon and see how well it works out.  This is one of the things that I kind of wish was more automated, like some kind of limit on the number of owned clothing items per dwarf or something.

[NedeN]

If you were to forbid a dwarfs bed, would they still use it to sleep? Or do I need to select every cabinet individually for this to happen correctly?

[Kneenibble]

I'm going to try this -- I have 200-some dwarves in a fort now 16 years old with a very active clothing industry, and the laundry list has grown staggering.  I'm just curious though, what is it about forbidding the cabinet that causes ownership to decay?  i.e. why does this work?

If you were to forbid a dwarfs bed, would they still use it to sleep? Or do I need to select every cabinet individually for this to happen correctly?

You could forbid the cabinets from the stocks menu more efficiently.

edit  Oh wait, is the idea that you forbid the clothes inside as well as the cabinet itself?

[martinuzz]

If you were to forbid a dwarfs bed, would they still use it to sleep? Or do I need to select every cabinet individually for this to happen correctly?

I don't think a dwarf will sleep in a forbidden bed. You can make things easier though if you give your dwarves personal dining rooms. No problem if they don't use those while stuff is forbidden, and use the common legendary dining room instead.

What I haven't tried yet is trying personal barracks/armory rooms designated from cabinets. Not sure if those will be used for storing personal stuff, or only for military equipment.

If that works however, the most efficient solution would be to build a large area with 1x1 armories near your clothing and refuse stockpiles, and make sure those are the only available cabinets for storing clothes. You could forbid / unforbid all your dwarves' clothing with a single action that way, and hauling distance will be minimal.

edit  Oh wait, is the idea that you forbid the clothes inside as well as the cabinet itself?

Yes, but that's what d-b-f does. It forbids both the cabinet as well as everything inside it, just like d-b-c reclaims it all.
Owned items that are not being worn by a dwarf will lose their ownership status after being forbidden for about a dwarfmonth.

[khearn]

You could alway d-b-f the bedrooms, then go into the stocks screen and unforbid all the beds.

Or just let them sleep on the floor for a month. Hmmm, the wiki doesn't have any hard data on how often a dwarf sleeps, and I don't recall seeing any science on it, so I don't really know how long a dwarf typically goes between sleeps. I'd guess that if you forbade all the beds for a month, lots of dwarves might not even try to sleep during that time. Yet another question in need of research. How often do dwarves sleep, and what influences it?

You could also just set up a decent sized dorm to handle it. You'd take a minor happiness hit, but not much of one. Probably more than made up for by the extra happiness from acquiring new clothes.

[greycat]

Isn't it much simpler just to not give your dwarves cabinets in the first place?  Then they can't store used clothing, so it loses ownership in a couple weeks.

[Kneenibble]

Isn't it much simpler just to not give your dwarves cabinets in the first place?  Then they can't store used clothing, so it loses ownership in a couple weeks.

Anytime I haven't given dwarves cabinets, then they leave heaps of clothes all over their bedrooms and meeting areas.  The ownership never seems to go away.

[Loci]

I only give my dwarves a dress, cloak, shoes, cap and trousers

Caps are just bad: they conflict with helmets and are inferior to hoods in coverage and value. Shoes, similarly, conflict with boots, and robes are more valuable than dresses.

So, for an optimum ensemble, I'd recommend: robes (if available), socks, hoods, and trousers. Gloves and cloaks are optional, but do provide some benefits.

[Telgin]

Isn't it much simpler just to not give your dwarves cabinets in the first place?  Then they can't store used clothing, so it loses ownership in a couple weeks.

Anytime I haven't given dwarves cabinets, then they leave heaps of clothes all over their bedrooms and meeting areas.  The ownership never seems to go away.

As long as it's dropped in a room that belongs to them the ownership won't go away, nope.  I saw the same behavior though: they'd just dump their clothes all over their rooms.

From what I recall the dwarves would still sleep in their owned but forbidden beds, which really surprised me at the time since I expected that they wouldn't.  That may have changed since .34.x and I may just be misremembering.

[NedeN]

From what I recall the dwarves would still sleep in their owned but forbidden beds, which really surprised me at the time since I expected that they wouldn't.  That may have changed since .34.x and I may just be misremembering

Can anyone confirm that dwarves will sleep in a forbidden bed, or should we make dormitories for when we want to release ownership from clothes?

[Kneenibble]

I was able to try this when I had a chance to sit down and play for a while on Sunday.  I mass-forbade the whole bedroom area and then reclaimed the beds, doors, and chests, so I can't confirm whether leaving the beds forbidden was a problem, unfortunately.

After a month, I mass reclaimed it all, with refuse and finished goods clothing stockpiles waiting.  The number of "store item in stockpile" jobs that was subsequently generated was staggering.  What a backlog of rags lurking in all those cabinets after seventeen years!  Hundreds upon hundreds.  Very satisfying to watch them disintegrate in the trash heap.

This will have to become part of regular fort maintenance, I suppose.

[martinuzz]

I only give my dwarves a dress, cloak, shoes, cap and trousers

Caps are just bad: they conflict with helmets and are inferior to hoods in coverage and value. Shoes, similarly, conflict with boots, and robes are more valuable than dresses.

So, for an optimum ensemble, I'd recommend: robes (if available), socks, hoods, and trousers. Gloves and cloaks are optional, but do provide some benefits.

Thanks for that tip. I never realized that socks satisfied the foot coverage need just like shoes do. Now I'm just waiting for my last fortress shoes to wear out, and then I can finally assign full uniforms 'over clothing' and have them put on those darn steel low boots (my civilization doesn't know how to make high boots sadly). Soon my entire fort will be permanently armoured, except when there's digging or treecutting that needs to be done. (I even keep my miners and woodcutters in a squad, and only temporarily remove them from it when I actually designate digging or treecutting jobs. They each have two picks/axes. One masterpiece, assigned to their military slot, and one spare one lying around to pick up as a tool when I undraft them)

[kingsableye]

Since beds are technically buildings when placed, I don't think forbidding them has any effect (unless you deconstruct it, which it will then become a forbidden furniture item)