Quoting myself for a change: “As someone once explained to me, they [family Zirkind] and others were told to keep their levush because it would fool others into assuming how cosmopolitan and accepting Lubavich was.”
I reread this and realized that people would think it was just an outlandish claim made by someone who doesn’t like Lubavich. So please allow me to clarify.
When someone joins a group he wants to be part of that group and identify with them fully. Naturally, therefore, he wants to adopt their dress code, and this is what happened in a number of cases when people joined Lubavich. One example is the brother of the Rachmastrivka Rebbe shlita who still wears the full Rachmastrivka levush even though he has been a fully-fledged Lubavicher for decades. And the reason he didn’t change is because the Lubavicher rebbe told him not to. This is not conjecture; it is a well-known fact. Go and ask him if you don’t believe me.
Now why would the LR stop someone identifying in a manner which would allow him to feel the part fully. The answer that I was given is, as I wrote, to attract others to Lubavich.
So, in contrast to what CS wrote, it is not out of caring for the feelings of those who came with a different levush.