To me, they have that connotation. Fashion doesn't tend to be that regular outside of close-knit groups, and even within those groups there are differences that those within can pick up on. You might think that Amish all dress alike, but they really don't. Similarly all suits look more or less alike to me, despite the fact that I'm sure if I spent a lot of time looking at suits I'd start to notice more refined differences.

To have such a narrow variation as suits tend to constitute, among a group of fairly diverse individuals... that implies to me that there's a power effectively forcing that distribution on the group.

> a t-shirt saying Hollister or Linux or some other corporate entity does.

I don't see the relevance, no-one has to wear those things so the connotation of subservience isn't there. I suppose coming off the point of the fella above this fork you could view it as submission to a group norm, but I think the connotation's different there - less about overtly oppressive dominance.

In any case, I don't wear that sort of thing - don't like writing on my clothes, if someone's advertising with my body I want to be paid for it. Prefer patterns and pictures and nice rich colours.