Unimplemented Cultural Armour
They probably got scrapped for the “grow your own armor” look they have going.
They looked like normal clothes with a plant feel, not natural enough.
If anything that would be armor all races can use. Interracial cultural armor maybe.
To be honest, I just wish they’d put the two cultural armor sets we can see on some of the Grove’s NPC… I just don’t understand why arenanet like to torment its players so much by putting armors or faces that are just available to NPCs.
This is old conceptual art for the Sylvari during their first pass, when they were still more or less elves with leaf-hair.
You can see some similar designs in their old promo video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXORsebPy80
This was considered inefficient for what the artists were trying to convey, so the design wasnt used anymore when the Sylvari were upgraded to the versions we have now, more plant than human.
More on that process here:
http://www.merekatcreations.com/?attachment_id=594
The assets werent completely scrapped, though, so its still possible to see pieces of this older armor on town npcs in The Grove, or your home instance.
I dont think it was ever was meant to be acquirable.
I thought some of the clothing you see on citizens was actually the cooking clothing you can buy in the gem store.
As you can see, it’s early concept, and there is a good reason these didn’t make it to the game the way they were. Armor that becomes part of your body is a design far more better.