Why would someone want a texture with clothes?

Someone has asked me for the texture of the clothes I sell. As I'm not the creator of the clothing I can't do this but I want to know why they'd want the texture anyway? I'm very suspicious but maybe it's an innocent request, any thoughts?

perhaps they want to make matching accessories?

Perhaps they are not aware that all the templates exist for clothes and would like to make their own, therefore by seeing yours that could give them an idea.

Ask them if they no about the templates.

Sounds to me like they want the texture.. not the template.. That would be up to the creator of the outfit as to wether or not they would want to sell that particular texture..
So basically they need to contact whoever made that outfit..

I have been experimenting with just with my own textures creating clothing fabrics,etc.. The problem I have with making clothing with just fabrics i.e textures inworld is sometimes the fabric texture vanishes and I am clueless to wonder why.
I can't risk selling or storing outfit because the texture I or new person would have to redo each time I wear it.
Also they can change, tweek, or resell it.
Rebaking I discovered is useless with this. I figure its a assest server issue.
The texture stays put better if its included in the template.
My designer friend told me once if she made her textures availlable that she puts on templates she lose business.
No one wants a texture with restricted permissions but clothing is different story.
Also when buying others clothes often there is limit on permissions. If they grant me modify, no copy, transfer. If I change it any way and mess up the texture if I don't know how to fix it I lost it for good especially if its restricted..
I seldomly personally want to transfer items but there is lot of people who do they often are resellers.

My thoughts are that they want the texture so that they can modify the clothing in some way. Maybe the outfit is sold as no modify and they want to slightly change the color or shorten it, or take away the sleeves...etc. Might be innocent, but they also might want the texture to make their own copyable version of the outfit in order to sell for themselves.

I wouldn't give up the texture. Chances are, they want to make a knockoff. If they screwed something up with the clothes, give them a mod copy to replace it, but never the original texture.

I liked the chinese dragon design on my NicKy Ree catsuit so much that I wanted to put it on my vehicle, to make it a "matching accessory". Nicky, however, told me (most politely) that she doesn't sell any of her textures. I can certainly understand why...the texture is what makes the clothing unique.

Match the car to the catsuit ... only in SecondLife

Hmm, can't place that catsuit dragon .. shall investigate

Well, other drivers/pilots have flight suits made to match their vehicle...I didn't see the harm in doing it the other way around.

Besides, my vanity knows no bounds.

I thought about asking the creator of a tattoo I have, and the skin I use both for copies of their textures. So that I could combine the two. Otherwise, the tattoos (like many) use the underpants/undershirt layers, meaning I can't wear anything under a skirt. The only solution I have right now is a pair of lace pants that were designed for a skirt, and then changing the settings to narrow it down to make some underwear for myself.

If the tattoos are not free it's not reasonable to expect the creator to give you the textures for obvious reasons. It would be more realistic to ask the creator if they would give you additional copies of the tattoos on the sock layer and the pants layer of clothing. Most good tattoo merchants will package their tattoos in all applicable layers of clothing or at least 2 of them. I can't think of a legitimate reason why the creator of your tattoo did not package the tattoo in a set with the option to wear as underpants, pants, and, if it is a leg tattoo, socks.

One possibility is that they want a texture that matches the fabric of the clothing so they can make matching prim accessories. That texture would be one with the same PATTERN as the clothing, not the actual texture that is used for the clothing (with alpha masks and so forth).

I'm not sure how I would feel about doing that, since one motivation might be to create knockoff clothing. You could at least slow them down by giving a no-modify or no-transfer texture, either of which would prevent them from downloading the texture. Giving a no-transfer texture would also prevent them from selling or giving away the texture or any items created with it, which might or might not match your intent.

I don't ask for textures, but I will ask to buy a mesh skirt that matches a gown with a prim skirt, if the outfit doesn't already come with one. That is because I want to still appear to be in a long, modest skirt if I am walking or sitting. In fact, I have sometimes not bought an otherwise attractive gown because it did not include a mesh skirt. I can make my own glitch pants but the skirt has to match the texture of the shirt in order to work.

The box texture, or the actual photoshop (or whatever was used) template file?

If they want the actual art template file, i see a very big red flag. I would never ever ever give that up.