Clothing throughout History.

Clothing is important. It warms us, it protects us from injuries, it can even cool us when hot weather... And last, but not less: it is a social tool, showing our status and even traces of our personality.

On this report I am going to show you the evolution of clothing throughout History. Let's go.

Prehistoric times.

It is believed that humans started to wear clothing 170.000 years ago, during a very severe ice age. Thus, the first purpose of clothing was merely pragmatic: to warm our bodies. There aren't archeological remains of these garments; but archeologists know it thanks to lice DNA, which changed when humans started to wear clothing. Bone needles have also been found, which means that our ancestors knew how to stitch clothing.

First clothing was animal fur. The picture on the right is a real outfit of a 19 years old girl, founded in a tomb, dated about 3500 years ago.

Ancient Egypt.

The first serious attempt of fashion was in Ancient Egypt, about 5.000 years ago. Egyptians were very skilled at dressmaking. Some typical clothing: linen and cotton skirts, sandals, beautiful dresses, bead dresses... People also wore wigs. In the land of pharaos clothing was not only for dressing, but also an indication of social status and wealthy. More info clicking on the next link:

Clothing and fashion in Acient Egypt.

Ancient Greece and Rome.

Greeks and Romans didn't care much about design: they used long tunics for special occasions (female peplum in ancient Greece, tunica in ancient Rome) and short tunics for working. If the weater was cold, over theese tunics they wore like a blanket, which could be very ellaborated, depending on the social status of the person. 

Other thing was colour: Greeks and Romans loved to dye their clothing in a great variety of colours. Red, blue, green and yellow were very popular. Purple was the most prestigious one, only reserved to very important kings or emperors. Poor people didn't dye their clothing, because it was expensive.

Romans adopted an "institutional suit" called toga. The toga was a very large piece of clothing wrapped to body in a very complicated way. I would be the equivalent of actual formal suit, used in important or special occasions.

Curious fact: Romans invented the Bikini. (See photo on the right)

More information in both links:

Ancient greek fashion.

Ancient Rome Fashion

Middle Ages and Renaissance.

During Medieval Times and Renaissance clothing evolved to more sofisticated standards, specially women clothing. The appearance of silk, comming from China, permited new designs:  However, only rich people wore ellaborated clothing. Poor people kept using tunics for daily work. 

Some examples of new clothing appeared during Middle ages: long dresses, slashed sleeves, skirts, a great variety of hats, bodices, etc. Also armor became a fashion complement, speciall for men.

Baroque.

During Baroque period (XVII and XVIII centuries) fashion and dressmaking became very complex and elaborated, as usually, for rich people. Female dress evolved to unbelievable desings, composed by many layers of different clothing. Hairstyle also became very sofisticated: enormous wigs, parfums, impossible hats... Men clothing got also complex: silk coats, linen shirts, embroided vests... During baroque, pants were invented; first for poor people; and later for everybody, no matter social position. 

As for poor people, the thing didn't change very much. Clothing kept being simple, designed for daily working. 

From XIX century to today.

After French Revolution (1789) many things changed, including clothing. During that revolution many nobles, and even the king and queen, were killed. Sofisticated clothing became a symbol of opression; so people stopped dressing like that. Less elaborated desings appeared, and fashion tended to simplicity.

If you look at pictures from that time, you could see that clothing was quite simmilar to what today is considered "formal clothing": jackets, skirts, vests, long coats, ties, dresses...

In the XX century we find a revolution in fashion, led by the best and most innovative woman in dressmaking: Coco Channel. This woman changed women clothing forever. She trully believed that clothing must be comfortable overall. She was the first of dressing a woman with pants. A revolution. She also introduced very comfortable suits for girls. 

And what about today? Well, today fashion has become so wide that it would be impossible to name all the options we have when dressing. Great variety of dresses, skirts, pants, tops, vests... Every year fashion changes in designs and patterns, making very difficult to say what is the actual trend.

But fashion is still about what we said at the begining of this post: Clothing for protecting, warming, cooling and... talking about our personality and social status.