I'm totally not for the shortdesc of items being messed with. For like a whole pile of reasons. God no. Leave shortdescs alone please guys mother of god please.
My first issue with adding mandatory add-ons to clothing shortdescs is how it's going to limit the flexibility of tailoring adjectives in descriptions, and potentially make the shortdescs of clothing cumbersome and annoying in length.
For example. Considering textiles. It's limiting already in the sense that there are only a few generic 'fibers' we can buy in 'rolls' and it's assumed that all other elements are acquired in the same manner that our characters buy toilet paper. It's ambient in how it gets into the garment.
There are a lot of things which "cotton" could be made into. Denim for example. Synthetic textiles typically contain a blend of fibers, or can be treated in a specific way and the result feels and looks different, yet it's the same base elements. Velvet. Suede. Twill. Canvas. Burlap. Polyesters. Neoprene. Spandex. Latex. Lycra. Mesh. Rubber.
The word used to describe the look and feel of the fibre makes a difference in how the item is viewed on a quick glance. It's not possible to have every material as an option in the game as a coded choice, so some ambient choice in the 'type' of fabric based on the 'base' material has always been implied.
If I am wearing "a shoddy burlap shirt" It's way more obvious what I'm trying to convey over "a shoddy cotton shirt." And it doesn't make much sense if you try to say "a shoddy cotton shirt made of burlap" And what if my tailoring skill is high and I'm TRYING to make a shoddy shirt? Then is it going to say "A masterfully tailored shoddy cotton shirt"? That's also a problem.
Sometimes the selection of material is based on layer-ability. If you have a leather g-string. Well then you can't wear a cotton skirt over it can you? Even though that's a little silly since it's a g-string and a skirt is just flapping around on top of it, code does not allow for that freedom of definition. So a tailor might elect to design the g-string with cotton, and define the cotton in the description like "it's lined with cotton and the straps are cotton but the crotch is leather." You still wouldn't call it "a cotton thong with a leather crotch"
Furthermore, if we start adding %quality to the shortdesc, plus %material, the titles of these items are going to get SO long, limiting the amount of descriptive adjectives a tailor might place before that items name becomes a run-on sentence list instead of a description. Or worse, forcing tailors to rein in the execution of an idea in favor of accommodating a fixed template.
That.. and honestly to me it feels silly that I can pick out the exact materials in your clothes as well as how good they are made just as you walk buy.
When players are walking around, do we REALLY want to see:
"An engaging man with parted bright white hair wearing a pair of excellent-quality, Egyptian cotton, Player Brand Name straight-legged dark red business trousers."
Maybe it's the OCD in me but I feel like that's just super overwhelming and TMI for a shortdesc.
IRL I don't fucking know that your shirt is silk or some other fake-silk almost silk but not actually. I don't know if your stitches are masterful. There is only yeah that looks cheap it's already falling apart, or no that seems pretty good. It seems shiny and silky. I certainly can't "grade" how awesome the thing is.
TLDR: No for the love of god leave the shortdescs alone that's too much. I don't need to see all that info. Nor do I want to see tailored item descriptions getting boxed into narrow, less creative templates.
Of the proposed options so far, there are two that seem the most viable from my viewpoint.
Adding something to the @inspect commanding as has been suggested. That's viable to assess if a piece of clothing is shit, without cutting flexibility.
force a %quality and %material to be included the @worn and @description much in the same way that color is. At least then a tailor has some flexibility working those into the finished piece.