In recent weeks I have been rethinking the commands of Numbers 15:37-41 and Deuteronomy 22:12. I am aware that there are a few popular assertions about this command, such as the "we don't wear the same kind of garments" argument and the "we don't know the exact color of blue dye" argument, but I am writing to those who have gotten beyond that.
When I first began to observe the Torah, my associate and I were aware of the commanded tzitzit/gedelim, so we made tassels with blue and placed them on what we perceived to be the four corners of button-up shirts (one at each corner: two at each top edge, two at each bottom edge). A person we were meeting with at the time promptly discouraged us from doing that because it wasn't like how he did it, which was to wear them on his pants via tying around the beltloops.
Since then, until now, I have been observing some variation of the beltloop practice. On pants without beltloops, for example, I would use safety pins or otherwise sew the tassels on. In regard to skirts (whether kilts for men or dresses for women), I would have suggested tassels at the four wings of the bottom.
A few months back, however, I had a discussion with someone about this issue and he asked what garments I thought they should be applied to. We referenced "covering the nakedness", but after thinking about it, I recognize there is no basis for this textually as applying to the tzitzit/gedelim command. The commands of Num 15:37-41 and Dt 22:12 tell us to put them on "their clothes" and "your covering which you cover in her". The term for "clothes" (b'gadiym) is used rather generally, and not just in reference to lower garments or anything of that sort. Exodus 28:4, for example, gives a list of the priestly clothing, using the same term. Not all of these garments are for "covering the nakedness", certainly.
How I have began to understand this is to apply it more generally. My shirts and coats are clothing as well, not just my pants, so I have been sewing tassels on to the four corners of the bottom opening. I might even consider something like a blanket to need tassels as well, since we are covering ourselves as such.
I still do how I did before in regard to pants, but I no longer deem having a single garment with tassels on it as fulfilling the command fully.
