If talking to Isabelle doesn't work

[Kattea]

I've heard complaining to Isabelle isn't entirely effective at getting a villager to stop wearing something (or it gives them a Nook Inc shirt). Neither is gifting them their default clothing. What then, is the most effective strategy for achieving this?

 

[InstantNoodles]

Unfortunately I think you have to get an original version of the villager. It’s extremely frustrating :/

 

[loveclove]

There's no way

 

[sleepydreepy]

I don't think there is an easy fix.

From my experience though, if you give them a lot of clothes they "like," they will rarely wear whatever random shirt you don't want them to wear. For example, Sly was given some medieval cavalier type shirt as a gift from Hans and it looked horrible on him. Every time I saw him in it I would immediately give him something else that was more to his liking, and I think because the shirt he was gifted was not his style or color, he almost never wears it now because he has way more clothes he prefers to wear, if that makes sense.

 

[Nami]

Gift them clothing they like and they will pretty much start wearing that all the time. I hardly ever ever see my villagers in their default clothing or any other gifted clothing once I gave them a style they like.

That said, the other method you can combine this with is giving them clothing every single day, even if it's the same thing. You may eventually cycle it out. I've had some success with this though it did take quite a while to completely stop seeing a particular piece.

 

[Ras]

If Nintendo would remove villagers displaying clothing, we could gift them enough to push unwanted clothing out of their inventory. But, I don’t give clothes because I don’t want it displayed.

 

[Sharksheep]

Complaining to Isabelle only removed custom designs that the villager might be wearing. You can try to cycle it out by gifting them clothing you rather see them wear