Plug in clothing explained (9)
I believe the answer is:
addressed
'explained' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with communicating as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'plug in clothing' is the wordplay.
'plug' becomes 'ad' (as in plugging a product).
'in clothing' becomes 'dressed' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ad'+'dressed'='ADDRESSED'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for addressed that I've seen before include "Spoken to" , "Attended to" , "Gave attention to a problem" , "Gave a speech to" , "Marked mail with its destination" .)