The Fabric of Lifeorwhat Material Should I Use To Make That Dress With

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...

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"...

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”...

Ancient Egyptian Fashion ... The pardalide (made of a leopard skin) was traditionally used as the clothing for priests. Elements of Egyptian clothing In ancient Egypt, linen was by far the most common textile...

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...

Clothing In The Ancient World ... The dress was rather narrow, even constricting, made of white or unbleached fabric for the lower classes, the sleeve starting under the chest in higher classes, and held up by suspenders tied onto the shoulders...

1500–1550 In Fashion ... In particular, the clothing of the Low Countries, German states, and Scandinavia developed in a different direction than that of England, France, and Italy, although all absorbed the sobering and formal influence of Spanish dress after the mid-1520s...

Culture Of Ancient Rome ... Life in ancient Rome revolved around the city of Rome, its famed seven hills, and its monumental structures such as the Flavian Amphitheatre (now called the Colosseum), the Forum of Trajan, and the Pantheon. The city also had several theaters, gymnasiums, and many taverns, baths, and brothels...

Hat ... Bearskin The tall, furry, full dress uniform hat of the Brigade of Guards designed to protect the footguards against sword-cuts, commonly seen at Buckingham Palace... Top hat A tall, flat-crowned, cylindrical hat worn by men in the 19th and early 20th centuries, now worn only with morning dress or evening dress...

Toga ... As time went on, dress styles changed. Romans adopted the shirt (tunica, or in Greek chiton) which the Greeks and Etruscans wore, made the toga more bulky, and wore it in a looser manner...

1550–1600 In Fashion ... General trends Spanish style When new colonies were formed in the 'New World', now known as America, it brought up new opportunities for new wealth and prosperity for Spain. This allowed the Spanish people to expand a number elements from their daily lives, especially fashion...

Undergarment ... Undergarments are generally of two types, those that are worn to cover the torso and those that are worn below the waist, though garments which cover both also are available. Different styles of undergarments are generally worn by women and men...

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

Silk Road ... Extending 4,000 miles (6,500 km), the Silk Road gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade along it, which began during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). The central Asian sections of the trade routes were expanded around 114 BCE by the Han dynasty, largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian, but earlier trade routes across the continents already existed...

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...

Han Chinese Clothing ... The contemporary concept of hanfu excludes many evolutions and innovations in the dress of the Han Chinese people since 1644, the founding of the Qing dynasty, on the basis that such changes were imposed by force (such as through the Queue Order) or adopted through cultural influence from the ruling Manchu ethnicity...

1100–1200 In Fashion ... Fur was worn as an inside lining for warmth. Vair, the fur of the squirrel, was particularly popular and can be seen in many illuminated manuscript illustrations, where it is shown as a white and blue-grey softly striped or checkered pattern lining the mantles of the wealthy...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Anglo-Saxon Dress ... The tunic ended between the hip and the knee and had either long or short sleeves. Clasps were not needed to hold the tunic together because when pulled over the head it would sit snugly around the neck without the use of lacing or ties, indicating that the garment was one continuous piece...

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...

Dress ... See also History of Western fashion: 1795–1820, 1820s, 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s Victorian fashion, Artistic Dress movement, Victorian dress reform...