Introduction: Approaching Dress

Everyday we make decisions about dress and adornment. Some choices are straight forward based on the weather outside, others are proscribed dictated by where we are going (the gym, swimming pool, work, a special event), and still others more complex according to whom we might see, the people we associate with, and whether or not to conform to societal expectations. Our choices ( conscious and unconscious) engage with and convey gender, status, wealth, and social ideals. The ancient Greeks were no different: their clothing choices may have been less varied, but these too conveyed messages and depended on social contexts. The study of dress is not simply about fashion and style, but a window into daily life, social roles and expectations, identity, and culture.

This collection examines dress in ancient Greece in the archaic and classical periods (750-323 BCE) with some discussion of Hellenistic Greece (323-31 BCE) as well. Compared to their neighbours, Greek dress was rather simple with most clothing items consisting of a single rectangular piece of cloth draped, pinned, and/or belted around the body in various ways (Fig. 0.1).

Early studies of ancient Greek dress (eighteenth and nineteenth century CE) focused on identifying types of garments and how they were worn. Some consideration is given here to the practices behind Greek dress, including materials and manufacture (especially its dependence on enslaved people), but in taking a close look at dress and adornment, including clothing, footwear, hair, jewellery, scented oils and other enhancements, the chapters consider dress as a non-verbal form of communication and not simply a necessity or matter of taste. Simply put, they explore dress as a marker of wealth, status, age, gender, and ethnicity. Together they emphasize dress as a tool of stratification, socialization,  and a way to advance social values, exert agency, and construct difference.

Thinking Through the Evidence

As Kelly Olson emphasizes, dress is a complex field of study that incorporates a variety of approaches (historical, cultural, economic, communicative, gendered) and draws on as many different types of evidence as available. Because textiles rarely survive and expensive items like jewellery were regularly melted down for reuse, each chapter draws on visual imagery and literary texts (from multiple genres) in addition to material remains to reconstruct and explore the significance(s) of ancient dress. Visual images in particular show how clothing was worn, who wore it, and in what contexts. Since much of the imagery is idealized, however, it’s important to review the images against texts and material evidence as much as possible. Written texts, furthermore, most frequently provide an elite male and Greek perspective and so it’s necessary to read beyond the text to consider other viewpoints. The study of dress requires the researcher to explore and gain expertise in art, literature, and archaeology all at once.

Unravelling Greek Dress

The complexity of thinking through dress is on display in mythical accounts of the first woman. Although Hesiod’s Works and Days begins with Hephaistos fashioning Pandora from clay, much of the account centres on her adornment: Athena clothes and girdles her (also shown in Fig. 0.2), the Kharites (Graces) adorn her with jewels, and the Horai (Seasons) dress her hair with garlands (Hes. WD 70-76). Her “birth” is inseparable from her adornment and this fact stresses the importance of clothing and jewels to ideals of femininity and female beauty.

The account of Hesiod also emphasizes female artifice, since her adornment hides her bestial nature and “tricks” men into desiring her. In contrast, as Larissa Bonfante notes, the male “costume” in Greek art was nudity, which stressed physical strength, prowess, and athleticism, and alluded to the sincerity and transparency of Greek men and their bodies. This observation does not mean that men went about their daily lives naked (only the gymnasium and baths were appropriate contexts for nudity), but that elaborate dress was suspicious and unmasculine. Dress was thus intimately linked to constructions of gender and, as we shall see, ethnicity, in addition to wealth and status.

Despite Hesiod’s disparagements, however, the myth also highlights dress as more than appearances. Adornment was a vehicle for female community, since women (in this case, female gods) came together to adorn her. It also hints at women’s economic, ritual, and artistic contributions to Greek society, since textiles in ancient Greece were typically manufactured in the home by the female members of the household who showed off their craft daily and at festivals in the garments they (and members of their households) wore and dedicated. Although living in a highly patriarchal society, adornment, despite its restrictions and norms, offered women some control over their bodies and identities as they chose what and how to wear garments, jewels, and cosmetics. Dress then also provides a window into female agency in Greek society.

It is the intersection between dress, society, and culture, and its messaging that the chapters that follow emphasize.