Greek Clothing Greek baby, from Hellenistic Egypt Greek babies often wore nothing at all, but sometimes, as in this picture, they wore cloth diapers. If it was cold, of course, they would be more wrapped up. Children also often wore only cloth wrapped around their middles like shorts. Greek men mostly wore a tunic, a sort of knee-length t-shirt made of wool or linen. Often, as in this statuette, they wore it only over one shoulder. Over the tunic they wore a wool cloak if it was cold out, which they could also use as a blanket if they needed to (for instance if they were off somewhere fighting a war). Their legs were bare, and they wore leather sandals when they weren't barefoot. But many men went barefoot their whole lives. Greek women wore one large piece of wool or linen, wrapped around them and pinned in various ways to make it stay. The ways of pinning it changed over time. One way was to fold the cloth in half, and put it so that the fold in the cloth came under your right armpit and down your right side. Then pull up on the front and the back of the cloth so they meet over your right shoulder and pin the front and the back together with a big safety pin. Then pull more of the front up over your left shoulder, and pin it to the back in the same way. Finally you will notice that your dress is still open all along your left side: tie a belt around your dress at the waist to keep your dress closed. These dresses always came down to their ankles. When it was cold, women also had long wool cloaks/blankets to keep them warm. http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/clothing/index.htm
CLOTHING: Greek clothing was very simple. Men and women wore linen in the summer and wool in the winter. The ancient Greeks could buy cloth and clothes in the agora, the marketplace, but that was expensive. Most families made their own clothes, which were simple tunics and warm cloaks, made of linen or wool, dyed a bright color, or bleached white. Clothes were made by the mother, her daughters, and female slaves. They were often decorated to represent the city-state in which they lived. The ancient Greeks were very proud of their home citystate. Now and then, they might buy jewelry from a traveling peddler, hairpins, rings, and earrings, but only the rich could afford much jewelry. Both men and women in ancient Athens, and in most of the other city-states, used perfume, made by boiling flowers and herbs. The first real hat, the broad-brimmed petasos, was invented by the ancient Greeks! It was worn only for traveling. A chin strap held it on, so when it was not needed, as protection from the weather, it could hang down ones back. HAIR STYLES: Both men and women enjoyed using mirrors and hairbrushes. Hair was curled, arranged in interesting and carefully designed styles, and held in place with scented waxes and lotions. Women kept their hair long, in braids, arranged on top of their head, or wore their hair in ponytails. Headbands, made of ribbon or metal, were very popular. Blond hair was rare. Greek admired the blonde look and many tried bleaching their hair. Men cut their hair short and, unless they were soldiers, wore beards. Barber shops first became popular in ancient Greece, and were an important part of the social life of many ancient Greek males. In the barber shop, the men exchanged political and sports news, philosophy, and gossip! http://members.aol.com/donnclass/greeklife.html
Greek clothing was made out of three types of materials. The first mostly used was wool which was woven from very coarse to very soft. They used linen grades from fine to very soft. Drapery in Greek culture did not fold crisply like Egyptian folds fell and the linen was not as stiff as the linen used in Egypt. Greek garments were essentially the same for men and women and were not shaped or fitted to the body but draped on the body in soft folds. There were four types, which were all rectangles: the chiton (dress), Doric and Ionic over draperies, the himation and the chlamys. Men wore their hair long at the beginning of Greek culture but it soon became fashionable to have shorter hair with little facial hair. Older men would wear mustaches with a shortly-trimmed beard and if a man had a mustache and no beard they were not Greek. In the archaic period women wore their hair hanging in snaky curls held by a fillet but as time passed women would wear their hair up and confined in bag, kerchiefs or nets. Colors of this period were bright-hued like yellow, indigo, green, violet, dark red, dark purple and colors that were from the earth. Motifs ranged from geometric like the dentil and arrangements of circles and squares to vegetable forms like the laurel, ivy and waterleaf. Notable Greek Clothing Elements Doric Chiton A garment worn to the sixth century. It was of wool dyed indigo, madder or saffron, frequently patterned, especially at the turn of the fifth century. Its upper edge was folded over to hang down on the breast; it was folded around the body, caught together on each shoulder by bins, leaving the arms uncovered, and though open down the right side, was held in place by the girdle, over which it bloused. In Corinth and Attica, it was sewn together down the side below the waistline. With time, the garment grew wider and was known as the Doric chiton, and over-fold deepened so that it was included in the girdling or hung over and concealed the girdle. When not girded, the over-fold could be raised over the head in back as a shawl. Ionic Chiton Of Phoenician origin. Most often seen in sources as a female garment. It was made of thin woolens, probably crepe-like, similar to materials still woven in Greece; also of linen, or the gauzy materials from Cos in Asia Minor, patterned in murex (Tyrian) purple. It was cut with ample width from two pieces, then sewn together along the top of the extended arm, frequently pleated, and long, sometimes trailing. It was often sewn or caught together all the way down the right side with the left side open. It was worn in many way by both men and women, and particularly by musicians and charioteers. The chiton was often worn with a short wrap the chalmydon. Himation A rectangle of wool with weighted corners, slung over the left shoulder, leaving the right arm free; or worn, by married women, with the corner over the head like a shawl. Dorian older men wore it as their only garment (as did the
Athenians in their return to an earlier simplicity, in the third to second centuries, B.C.) A man wearing the himation alone was alas adequately dressed. It served also as a blanket. The colors were natural wool colors: white, natural, browns, and black; or died scarlet, crimson or purple. The garment sometimes had woven patterns, selvages, and embroidery. Chlamys A smaller woolen rectangle than the himation, of Macedonian or Italian origin; sometimes bordered, pinned at right shoulder or front; worn with short chiton or alone by younger, more active men. Peplos Refers to the fabric folded over and hanging down across the top of the Doric chiton. http://www.cwu.edu/~robinsos/ppages/resources/costume_history/greek.htm ANCIENT GREECE Around 1.200 B.C. waves of Dorian invaders swept into Greece from Illyria on the east of the Adriatic and brought about the downfall of the Mycenaean civilization. The following four centuries are known as the "Dark Age" of Greece. The period started with a civilization of people dressed in bell-shaped skirts and tightly fitted bodices, and ended with a race dressed in draped clothes, the costumes we now associate with the Greeks and the Romans. From the seventh century B.C. onwards, we have vast quantities of reference material for the study of costume. Greeks were among the finest exponents of figurative sculpture. Never before had costume been portrayed with such meticulous care and precision. Statues, together with untold numbers of painted pots, give the historian a unique pictorial history of the development of a nation and its fashions. At the same time, we have the invaluable contribution of the written word. Such great Greek historians as Herodotus have given us very detailed descriptions of developments in fashion and the social significance of costume and their accessories. THE DORIC AND THE IONIC COSTUME
During the periods under discussion, generally referred to as Archaic and Classical, there were two basic styles of costume for both men and women: Doric, in existence at the beginning of the Archaic period, and Ionic which was adopted later. The most basic garment for women was the Doric peplos, worn universally up to the beginning of the sixth century B.C. Made from a rectangle of woven wool, it measured about six feet in width and about eighteen inches more than the height of the wearer from shoulder to ankle in length. The fabric was wrapped round the wearer with the excess material folded over the top. It was then pinned on both shoulders and the excess material allowed to fall free, giving the impression of a short cape. The pins used for fastening the shoulders of the peplos were originally open pins with decorated heads, but they were later replaced by fibulae or brooches. Herodotus, explaining this development, tells us a rather macabre story: After a disastrous military campaign by the Athenian army, all the forces were put to death except one man who managed to escape, return to Athens and tell the women about their husbands' fate. Devastated the women took the huge pins from their Doric peplos and butchered the man in anger and contempt. The men of Athens, Herodotus tells us, were so horrified that they declared that Ionic dress should be worn in the future. Whether the story is true is uncertain, but there was for sure a period when open pins went out of favor. The drawing on the left is showing the Doric chiton, the basic garment worn by Greek women up to the beginning of the sixth century B.C. It was folded so that there was an overlap of material on the bodice; the cloth was secured in place (on the shoulders) by pins. One way of draping the Doric peplos involved covering the pouching formed by the belt with another section of the woollen rectangle. This maiden from the Acropolis dates from the 6th century B.C. The statue was originally brightly painted. The Ionic chiton which followed was similar to the Doric peplos in overall construction. The woolen fabric was replaced by thin linen or occasionally silk, reflecting the increased influence of Asia Minor on the country. Again the costume was made from a single rectangle of material
but much wider than that used for the peplos, measuring up to ten feet wide. It had no surplus material and was measured exactly from shoulder to ankle. The enormous width required that eight to ten fibulae were needed to fasten the top edge, leaving an openwork seam either side of the neck which ran across the shoulders and down the arms to form elbow-length sleeves. The garment on the left, the Ionic chiton, was an alternative to the Doric chiton. The main difference lay in its greater width. The top edges of the material were fastened on the shoulder with clasps, so giving the wearer greater opportumity for the display of jewellery. Forms of male dress throughout the Archaic and Classical periods were very similar to women's. The two basic garments, the chiton and the himation, were adopted by both sexes. The full-length chiton was worn by all Greek men until the fifth century B.C. when, except for the elderly, it was abandoned in favor of a shorter version, which was knee-length. It was sometimes pinned on the left shoulder only, leaving the right shoulder and arm free. Soldiers worn a chiton on which both shoulders and arms of the garment were sewn, leaving a wide slit for the head. It was generally tied at the waist and a certain amount of material was gathered above the belt to draw the hem-line to mid-thigh level. The dish on the right illustrates the doric chiton as worn by both a man and a woman It is a popular misconception that Greek costumes were white. This idea most probably arose because most Greek statues are of marble, bronze, or some other monochromatic material, and even the ones which were originally polychromatic had lost their colors by the time they were discovered. During the Archaic period, clothes were generally white or off-white, commoners were forbidden to wear red chitons and himations in theaters or public places, but by the fifth century costumes were decorated with a wide range of colors. Homer tells us of extravagant costumes woven with threads of silver and gold. Pottery, statues and the written word have given us some knowledge of their decorative themes. One of the most common designs for borders was the Greek key pattern which has been used as a decorative motif ever since. More complex borders depicted themes ranging from animals, birds, and fish to complex battle scenes. The colored threads for these embroideries appear to have been limitless. Herodotus mentions yellow, violet, indigo, red and purple in a single garment.
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