You can often incorperate your own life into your persona. And since it is "play acting" anyways, your imagination is your drawing board. Go to the CAs profiles, and look at some of the folks and what thery character is...Take a look at mine, and you can see how it kind of follows my life sorta.
My pard Old Top was in the military all his life, and you guessed it, he was a Sarge in real life, so he now is in the 1870's infantry.
He and another pard are starting a military posse, so to go along I added the "Scout" look to my persona.
Your dress can go along with your chosen persona, One of the shooters I know is a Judge so it is suit coats, vests and town shoes/boots. In fact he gets most of his clothes at thrift shops. for a year I thought he had his clothes custom made. So, your clothing most likley be of the town style, probably a bit more uptown, if you are going to be an academic, look at some of the styles of clothes at the schools you would likely have attended or worked at in that era, (check history of the schools, pictures etc.
LIke I said, your imagination is the only thing that really limits you. (also you could go at it seriously, or with a sense of humor...then write your story...
hope it goes well.
curley
I have put some pix up of my various looks