How To Pick The Perfect Wedding Dress

Clothing In Ancient Rome ... Wild silk, that is, cocoons collected from the wild after the insect had eaten its way out, also was known. Wild silk, being of smaller lengths, had to be spun...

1300–1400 In Fashion ... From this century onwards Western fashion changes at a pace quite unknown to other civilizations, whether ancient or contemporary. In most other cultures only major political changes, such as the Muslim conquest of India, produced radical changes in clothing, and in China, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire fashion changed only slightly over periods of several centuries...

Men's Skirts ... Some long robes also resemble a skirt or dress, including the Middle Eastern and North African caftan and djellaba. Other similar garments worn by men around the world include the Greek and Balkan fustanella (a short flared cotton skirt), the Pacific lava-lava (similar to a sarong), some forms of Japanese hakama and the Bhutanese gho...

1600–1650 In Fashion ... The silhouette, which was essentially close to the body with tight sleeves and a low, pointed waist to around 1615, gradually softened and broadened. Sleeves became very full, and in the 1620s and 1630s were often paned or slashed to show the voluminous sleeves of the shirt or chemise beneath...

History Of Clothing And Textiles ... Clothing and textiles have been important in human history and reflects the materials available to a civilization as well as the technologies that it has mastered. The social significance of the finished product reflects their culture...

Clothing ... Physically, clothing serves many purposes; it can serve as protection from the elements, it can enhance safety during hazardous activities such as hiking and cooking. It protects humans from rough surfaces by providing a barrier between the skin and the environment...

1400–1500 In Fashion ... Silk-weaving was well established around the Mediterranean by the beginning of the century, and figured silks, often silk velvets with silver-gilt wefts, are increasingly seen in Italian dress and in the dress of the wealthy throughout Europe...

Skirt ... In the western world, skirts are usually considered women's clothing. However, there are exceptions...

Gown ... Women's dress In women's fashion, gown was used in English for any one-piece garment, but more often through the 18th century for an overgarment worn with a petticoat – called in French a robe... By the early 20th century, both "gown" and "frock" were essentially synonymous with "dress", although gown was more often used for a formal, heavy or full-length garment and frock or dress for a light-weight, shorter or informal one...

Shirt ... The shirt was an item of men's underwear until the twentieth century. Although the woman's chemise was a closely related garment to the man's, it is the man's garment that became the modern shirt...

Early Medieval European Dress ... Male dress The primary garment was the tunic -- generally a long fabric panel, folded over with a neck-hole cut into the fold, and sleeves attached... An early 6th century Merovingian Queen was buried in a violet silk dress and a red silk tunic embroidered in gold, as well as woollen hose and cloak... Clergy At the beginning of this period the clergy generally dressed the same as laymen in post-Roman populations; this changed completely during the period, as lay dress changed considerably but clerical dress hardly at all, and by the end all ranks of clergy wore distinctive forms of dress...

English Medieval Clothing ... The basic garments for women consisted of the smock, hose, kirtle, gown, surcoat, girdle, cape, hood, and bonnet. Each piece had designated colours and fabrics, for example “Materials used in the middle ages were woolen cloth, fur, linen, cambric, silk, and the cloth of silver or gold…the richer Middle Age women would wear more expensive materials such as silk, or linen”...

Shoe ... Shoes have traditionally been made from leather, wood or canvas, but are increasingly made from rubber, plastics, and other petrochemical-derived materials. Until recent years, shoes were not worn by most of the world's population—largely because they could not afford them...

Byzantine Dress ... Iconographic dress The most common images surviving from the Byzantine period are not relevant as references for actual dress worn in the period... Christ (often even as a baby), the Apostles, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Baptist and some others are nearly always shown wearing formulaic dress of a large himation, a large rectangular mantle wrapped round the body (almost a toga), over a chiton, or loose sleeved tunic, reaching to the ankles... Apart from Christ and the Virgin, much iconographic dress is white or relatively muted in colour especially when on walls (murals and mosaics) and in manuscripts, but more brightly coloured in icons...

1650–1700 In Fashion ... Gradually it developed into a draped and pleated dress and eventually evolved into a dress worn looped and draped up over a contrasting petticoat and a stomacher... Hunting and riding dress In a June 1666 diary entry, Samuel Pepys describes the Maids of Honour in their riding habits of mannish coats, doublets, hats, and periwigs, "so that, only for a long petticoat dragging under their men's coats, nobody could take them for women in any point whatever"...