Programme & Abstracts :: Registration Details :: Accommodation
THE CLOTHED BODY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
17-19 January 2002Hero Granger-Taylor
LondonThe display of status through dress
The concept of the display of status through dress is a familiar one to us, though how it applied in classical antiquity is not at first clear. Clothing at that time was mainly very plain and in the major art form, marble sculpture, it is treated in a way that to us may at first seem abstract and almost puritanical.
We should view these works of art having first absorbed what we can about contemporary clothing conventions, since these were very different from our own. The use of real purple, although only one aspect of dress, is a key to the understanding of the use of materials. Purple-dyed wool, especially of the best grades, was very expensive and the quantity of it used in a garment represented very directly the status of the wearer. In a more general way, the quantity of wool used in the whole garment, particularly fine white wool, also represented the wearer's status and wealth. Put briefly, the larger the garment, the grander the wearer.
The talk will also briefly consider related aspects of dress: laundering, bleaching, napping, pressing and the importance of characteristic edging details.