Furry Writing, Worldbuilding, and Storytime

They probably would, since clothing is more then just visual, they also offer protection. It would help stop fit getting into the food, protect it from dirt, keep it dry, etc.

The thing I'm wondering is, would anthros figure out to make clothings themselves?

Someone has to make it, so it would either be them, or them being inspired by aliens/humans.

And if they do, how would they look? Having their body completely covered in fur might make shirts and pants irrelevant, which means they might never develop them in the first place

They might be closer to linens, or thin articles of clothing, since they would be able to rely on it trapping air between the fur and skin, which would allow them to get away with one that only blocks the wind, even if it doesn't offer much insulation.

Ectothermic furs might have clothing that more resembles ours, possibly with internal pockets and heat spreaders designed to allow insertion of a thermal pack (like a hot water bottle) to help them adjust and maintain that internal temperature, if they aren't in a suitable environment.

Having clothing still has camouflage and protective effects, which would be useful, even if they have their own fur to contend with. It's a lot easier to get and stay dry if they have clothing that can either block the water from getting into their fur in the first place, and can soak it off of the fur if it is damp.

I suppose other articles of clothings like armbands, headbands, etc would still exist, and so would practical items like glasses or watches.

I wonder if some of them might exist at all. Modern spectacles are very much designed for human ergonomics, so furs might never really develop them in the first place. Hair bands might get in the way of fur, when you can just dye it, and don't need to hold it down in certain places.

You might also have new accessories to accomodate species-specific requirements that don't exist in humans. Bags that go on tails, thermal pack holders, slickers, etc.

Furthermore, different animals have different fur with different thickness, length, shapes, forms, etc. These different furs require different clothing. Anthros with thicker fur may wear less clothing than ones with thinner fur. Even more, different anthros will have different body shape and size. Clothing for rabbit sonas may not fit bear sonas.

You might get differing cultural clothing styles, but they would probably converge to some degree. Humans have a fairly wide range range of forms and lengths too, and a wide range of different clothing, designed for different functions. A sports bra is vastly different from a fur coat.

You might just have categorisation based on size and morphology.

Imagine how hard it'd be to manufacture all the different variations, though.

Probably less hard then you think. The basics for a set of clothes are pretty similar, especially if they are anthropomorphic species. A shirt is basically the same as a human shirt, and only winged/unconventional species might have some trouble, needing special alterations to make it work for them. Pants can just have a few tail options as a separate addition, since they're pretty standard as well. Your main pain points are goal size.

Particularly large/small species might have their own tailors and stores, but the designs wouldn't meaningfully change, and would scale accordingly.

Any clothes store would have to take into account multiple species and multiple sizes for that species.

Only if they were generalised. It would not be out of the realm of possibility for there to be a few different clothing stores, each with their own specialisations. We have hat, suit, and costume tailors today, a few that do specialisations for species with longer tails, wings, etc, would not be impossible.

I imagine that if clothes are less essential then the things anthros would wear would be practical items like bags and pouches, since pants with pockets wouldn't be common.

im concerned about the additional layer of insulation that clothing would add

The thing I’m wondering is, would anthros figure out to make clothings themselves? And if they do, how would they look?

Depends on the world they are set in, but in most cases I think the answer would be yes.

In a multi-species world, for example, even though furry species would have less incentive to turn to clothing solutions, both in the temperature and resistance departments, there would still be other species for which clothes would provide the same advantages it provides humans. Cold-blooded species are good candidates for clothes-as-temperature-control, and hairless species for clothes-as-defense-mechanism.

On single-species worlds, there's still, well, the world. Weather changes more rapidly than species adapt, so clothes could be invented as a way to deal with a suddenly colder climate.

If that doesn't fit, there's culture. Maybe, for centuries, taking care of their fur coat, and keeping it looking healthy and beautiful, has been an almost impossible endeavor. Clothes exist only to help the worst of the injured and diseased (for example, helping burn victims dealing with temperature management, or letting people infected with a hair-losing disease keep presentable), but the richer folks co-opt those clothes, decorate them, and start wearing them to hide the inevitable blemishes on they fur coats, and it becomes a status a symbol that eventually trickles down into lower classes. Many years later, once ~~skin~~ fur care starts improving, taking care of your fur becomes much more feasible, and the richest shift into wearing less clothing, it propagates, and now the only clothing that survives is that which either indicates status (displays of rare materials or colors), or has practical uses (pockets). Or maybe a culture of "nakedness" being seen as reprehensible has already developed, so while the richer folk are able to get away with it to some extent, the low/middle classes doesn't feel like they can, and they keep using full clothing, and it becomes a class discriminator.

Of course, clothing serves more purpose than just covering bare skins. They serve aesthetic purposes and shows our identity.

I think that, for those cases, accessories would be a more obvious choice. Pendants, collars, hats, arm- and tail-bands, etc. Clothes as we know them, a full set of cloth from head to toe, covering everything, seems like would be a harder sell to come naturally without external factors driving them in. (Or I just lack imagination in this particular scenario.)

(And shoes! As much as we, furries, like our beans exposed, shoes are something that I think every tool-capable civilization would eventually create. We even created horseshoes for horses, so not even hooved species would be spared the inevitability of shoes.)

Furthermore, different animals have different fur with different thickness, length, shapes, forms, etc. [...]

Anthros might have different size standards for different species to account their differences. [...]

That's a very interesting case!

A world were different species have different sizes/needs regarding clothing is a world where clothing resists industrialization and mass production. Mass produced clothes could be derogatorily generic. Unless you were one of the lucky species/individual that fit the "standard" form that was profitable to produce, you would only buy those if you didn't have money for tailor-made clothes.

Each town would have their own tailors, who knew how to produce adequate clothing for the species in those towns. Before you moved into a town you'd have to check either tailors or seamstresses, to see if they were able to produce clothes that fit your species, else you'd have to choose another town. These clothing specializations could be a factor driving group/society/culture formation, and there could even be cultural conflicts between species that were usually catered for, and those who weren't. It would be a factor uniting certain species together, and keeping others segregated.

I would say yes but in most everyday applications it would be more for style and asthetic rather than for warmth, though that also depends on the length of their fur and the temperature. Obviously in a very cold place where it gets bitterly cold they might wear warm clothes in addition to their fur to help stay warmer, or if they're a species with shorter fur they would wear warm clothes to stay warm in general. Clothing would also be important for protection in industrial environments as a form of protection, or to prevent contamination from fur.

As for how it would fit I imagine that clothes would have to be custom designed for each species, but they might also have the option of different sizing types that can work with different groups of species, though they would be baggy on some species (there isn't a way to make that work without custom designing for each specifically).

While this is heavily species dependent, assuming a highly diverse set of species, I'd imagine at least a part of the cultural evolution would be clothes as a tool for courtship, not necessarily protection. Covering up the naughty bits, showing off status through fashion, hell even basic clothing for specific jobs (however minimal they may be) are likely occurrences in such a setting.

And to piggy back off the multi species tangent; I'd imagine the less fur you have (or fat) the more likely you would be to wear clothes for comfort or protection. The size problem is simply resolved less through diversifying the clothes, but modularization. Foxes don't wear pants, they wear togas. Lizards wear leather straps around their girdles, birds might only ever had a bandolier and a hat. You don't buy a shirt, you buy a strip of cloth with sleeves. Then you tie it around you and secure it with a clip.

The diversity surrounding species variety would motivate eclectic industries capable of handling multiple different forms and needs. A niche, unless highly ludicrous, would be doomed financially.

EDIT: Negating courtship is also a reason for clothes such as in a business