I think it represents the seamstresses, the dressers, and then the laundry women who would have maintained clothes like this, who had tremendous amounts of work to do.
Most of the Londoners who passed them were used to eccentric dressers and took little notice, although occasionally one of them might glance back, wondering why anyone would wear such long cloaks in this heat.
" This sort of thing ought to be cleared away promptly at the end of meetings, " she snapped, before sweeping off towards an ancient dresser from which she started unloading dinner plates.