Roman Clothing and Fashion

by Alexandra Croom

'An excellent book for re-enactors' - Amazon review There is plenty of information about military dress in Roman Britain and the rest of the Roman Empire, but the evidence for civilian dress has not been comprehensively looked at since the 1930s. In this richly illustrated survey Alexandra Croom describes the range and style of clothing worn throughout the Western Empire and shows how fashions changed between the first and the sixth centuries. After a short introduction to the evidence (from archaeology, art and literature), and to the manufacture of clothing and its use in status display, she systematically treats male and female dress, looking at the tunic, toga (for men), mantle (for women) and cloaks; underwear, footwear and specialist wear; hats, hairstyles and jewellery. The book concentrates on the clothing work in the Mediterranean region, but includes a section on provincial fashions. A fine and varied corpus of illustrations (including colour plates) helps to bring the everyday world of the Roman Empire to life.

Genres: History, Ancient History, Nonfiction, Amazon, Fashion, Ancient

309 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 23, 2000

Reviews

[Bonnie_blu · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a great deal of information in this book. The author has done extensive investigation into Roman clothing, especially during the Empire, and has given specifics on clothing for women, men, and children. It was fascinating reading how little clothing changed for hundreds of years. The old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" definitely applies here. The vast majority of people wore tunics of one form or another throughout the Roman world, with regional variations. It was also interesting, but not unexpected, that women had very different societal requirements for clothing. Basically, women were supposed to be covered from head to toe whenever in public with only their faces and hands showing. In general, clothing played a big role in defining Roman "castes." Magistrates had definitive clothing, as did the military, Equestrians, the poor, and slaves.

The author also provides a great number of illustrations / pictures. However, the illustrations chosen often make it difficult to discern the object of clothing and how it is worn. It would have been much better if the author had adjusted the illustrations to eliminate other pieces of clothing and only highlighted the relevant pieces. In addition, a step-by-step illustration of draping the toga would have been much better rather than simple text.

Even so, I recommend the book to those interested in ancient Roman history, history of the Mediterranean, history of clothing, and ancient social structures.

[Ellis Morning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provides a lot of detailed information for many regions and time periods. If you're a reenactor, or you're just super-curious about all things Rome (hi!), you'll definitely want to look at this!

[Gordon Goodwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where's my Roman teen-drama where some Pannonian kid gets made fun of for their basket-hairpiece? How can I manage to get up each day knowing the Mauretanian provincials were centuries ahead in belted sash technology? Is it even possible to explain how badly I want to own a set of flowing Parthian silk pants?

[Aithne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing. It's only 160 pages (though rather biggish - B5 format or so), but they are so packed with information that I already need a re-read, as that was a bit too much to absorb in one go 😅. If you're already familiar with Roman fashion and are looking for a very in-depth analysis of different types of garments, it'll probably be too little for you; but if you're just an average person with an interest in the fashion of those times and not writing a PhD on it, you should be fully satisfied with what you get here. I found it a perfect balance between text and illustrations; I'd been rather afraid it might be more on the 'pictures with labels' side, but nope, it's a true textbook - and at the same time it still is richly illustrated (black and white while next to the text + an insert with close to 50(!!!) illustrations or photos in colour in the middle of the book), so if the descriptions alone don't do it for you, you can easily see what the author is trying to describe. Rich bibliography, many interesting titles in there, I'll definitely use it as inspiration for further research. Shorter chapters on children, beauty and provincial fashions, even with some mentions of general changes in the course of time. Oh, because of course, the main, Romanocentric body of the book absolutely does talk of the chronological developments, from the death of the republic to 6th or even 7th century. Chef's kiss.

My only complaint is that the author often refers to finds presented in other books (even giving the plate/picture numbers for reference), but they are not presented here. It's not the fact they are mentioned that I mind, of course, but their absence from this book 🙃. I assume the publisher refused to dedicate another 50 pages to all those pictures, or maybe they didn't obtain the rights to reprint them...? I can't imagine a scenario in which it would be the author's fault - in which she'd want to tease the readers with mentions of all those artifacts without showing them. If it was me, I'd like to show everything! Anyway: that's a great pity, of course, I'd gladly see all the things the author mentioned, but even being able to see only half of them was still highly inspirational. As I said, there's a lot of illustrations in this book. A LOT.

Very good purchase, highly recommend. I'll buy Mrs Croom's other book (the one about running the Roman home) for sure!

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent overview of the clothing and fashions of the Roman empire. Some of the text is riveting to read--such as the occasional stories, like the woman who wore the emperor's shade of purple or the political donning of freedman's caps to celebrate Nero's death--and other parts of it get a bit academic/textbooky, like reading a litany of styles. I found the photo pages with reconstructed clothing examples by far the most useful for visualizing the styles in question; try as I might I find it very difficult to make anything of the folds of clothing in the sculptures of Roman emperors and society figures, or on the sides of tombstones. The line drawings within the book are also a bit tricky to decipher, though of course it's better to have than not.

[Panya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roman Clothing and Fashion is accessible and affordable compared to many other books on this somewhat niche subject. As stated on the first page, this book "is intended to provide at least an introduction to this fascinating and complex topic." It systematically traces the major fashion changes for men, women, children during the Roman Empire. There is also a section that briefly covers some provincial styles. My only gripe is that while this book has a lot of illustrations—there is at least one every couple of pages—most of them are line illustrations rather than photographs, making it difficult, at times, to visualise the clothing depicted. Luckily, the book also contains a handful of photographs of reenactors wearing anything from puttees to gap-sleeved tunics.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Using this as a text book for a class I’m TAing in the spring. I look forward to seeing how it works in a classroom setting. I felt it was easily accessible, but seemed to gloss over a lot. This might make it more appealing to students.

[sherry revill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roman Dressing

I rated the book 4-stars because it reads like a textbook but the applicable color illustrations are all at the end of the book. There are some line drawings throughout but not enough to be very illustrative.

[Sally Chinery · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on the development of Roman clothing. Written in a style which is easy to read and with many illustrations. The colour plates have helpful illustrations for putting on togas along with modern re-enactors which help reinforce the ancient primary source illustrations

[Maan Kawas · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent book, I highly recommend!

[Tonia Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing resource chockful of historical documentation

So often we envision Roman (and Greek) clothing based on statues of Gods and Goddesses, the Animal House Toga Party, or worse yet on artists' renditions that are purely fantasy and idealistic notions of what we think they look like. While this has produced beautiful art from Renaissance painters and beyond, the truth is none of those three sources are really really reliable when it comes to what was worn by people of all classes in Italian Rome.

Croom's book is, by far, the most thorough and comprehensive anthology of Roman authors descriptions of the mode of their time (and of ages past), historically documented Roman law (which sometimes dictated what men and women could or could not wear), art FROM the Roman Empire that has survived, as well as artifacts that have been recovered, dating from the era. By compiling and comparing information from ALL of those sources, Croom does an amazing job of painting a mental picture of what the Roman man, woman, child, slave, priest/ess, soldier, senator, and emperor would look like. On top of that, Crook does her best to articulate the changing fashion trends over the numerous centuries that Rome ruled - and she even includes a section on what "provincial Romans" (those who lived in more rural areas away from the booming metropolis of the capitol, as well as those who lived in other territories and nation states that were subsumed into the Roman Empire).

As a professional costume designer, seamstress, and reenactor, I was delighted to see that Croom included a variety of art and artifact image references, as well as illustrations that traced the actual silhouettes or shapes of clothing. (How many millions of folds and swooping cloth swatches can we look at on decaying pieces of Roman art, before those of us who are trying to figure out how something might have been sewn or fashioned together say, "What the check am I looking at?!?" All of the visual references are extremely helpful in understanding what the difference between a tunica, toga, stolla, palla, and mantle are.

This book is a must read for Roman historians, reenactors, art historians and enthusiasts, fashion designers and historians, and those who really want to understand the construction of Roman and Roman-inspired dress.