Clothing

 The Ancient Egyptians have a fairly simple fashion. Their clothing was made from mostly white linen, the main Egyptian cloth. Linen was just awesome for the hot, dry Egyptian climate. It was light, loose and, comfortable, what more could you ask for? Linen was made from the stem and fiber of the flax plant. The way they did this was that they removed the head of the plant with a kind of comb. Then stems were, soaked, beat, and combed until they were ready for spinning into thread. They used wooden spindles to make the thread. After someone made the thread, a female wove the thread on loom and they would be able to make huge linen fabric pieces. Now the fabric was ready to make into clothing.

This is the flax plant.

There is more to Egyptian clothing then you think, like what kind of people wore what kind of clothing. Don’t you wonder what woman wore, what men wore, and even what children wore? Now you’ll know. Egyptian styles stayed pretty much the same over thousands of years. In earlier times men wore short kilts, which they wrapped around their waist and legs. Woman wore plain shift dresses, just plain dresses up to the knees or longer. Children wore nothing at all or wore very few pieces of clothing. Later the Egyptian fashion developed into something that had colour, very cool! Men now wore tunics, which are long shirts reaching the knees for men, but reaching the ankles for woman. Woman now wore pleated dresses, just normal dresses to me. Children, however, stayed the same! People of richer families wore long garments of rich linen, people more poor wore, such as farmers wore loin cloths and servants wore the same as children, nothing or very little. You would probably guess this by now, but the Ancient Egyptians didn’t really care about revealing their body to others. They didn’t even wear undergarment; in fact, linen is so fine that it is almost transparent! I don’t think Egyptians cared for their feet much because they didn’t really use shoes much. They did have sandals made from papyrus though, or they could have been made from reeds, leather, or even gold. Sandals were only worn on special occasions. You would think dressing up in Egypt is hard, but this is what they do like everyday!

The picture below is of linen used to wrap mummies.

Egyptian Style

Egyptians wore known to be truly chic. Women would wear long dresses with shoulder straps while, men would wear long kilts that hung in folds. Rich and fashionable Egyptians wore very high class clothing. They would wear very expensive white linen. Rich women pinned cones to their wigs for feasts and parties. As the oily cones melted in the warm evening air, they gave off a sweet scent. Pharaohs and rich people wore wigs on their heads that were made out of real hair, which was attached into hundreds of miniature braids and held in place by sticky beeswax. Also the Egyptians loved to smell good. Rich people used scented oils and breath fresheners, and they carried scented flowers around with them. Now onto the children’s clothing. This part is really gross because children often really never wore anything at all. They would just walk around naked. When special occasions came up the rich people would hire dancers to dance for them, so the dancers just wore strings of beads as an outfit. For footwear Egyptians would wear sandals made out of straw or leather. But usually they’d often just walk around barefoot. Ordinary workers just wore a simple cloth around their stomach. But for the rich, the coolest fashion was clothes made from the finest linen ever made. Linen is made from a plant called flax. It’s very hard to organize, But the Egyptians could whirl and lace it into lengths of beautifully light and

Fragile cloth. Servants’ shoes were woven from reeds which they gathered from the river bank. The women’s hair styles were pleasant. They’d have their hair down to their shoulders. The coolest thing was that at the bottom of their hair they’d have the whole thing the same size. No size could be bigger and no size could be smaller. For the men they would shave their whole head except they’d keep one single braid of hair on the right- hand side and they also had a name for it. They called it the “lock of youth”. For the men they wore their hair short. They shaved their beards and moustaches. The wigs that the women wore were also made out of vegetable fiber. The fiber made the hair stronger. For most of the day the men and women would wear tunics. The tunics were like a long T-shirt which reached to the knees for men and to the ankles for women. They were regularly made of linen and were almost always white. Both men and women wore blue and green eye shadow and black kohl eyeliner, when they were dressed up to go to special occasions or feasts. People also wore kohl around their eyes because it helped to keep the frown of daylight down. Most of Egypt loved to dazzle in the latest fashion. Most of the clothes we wear today were actually from the Egyptian times. Like for instance linen was made in Egypt. Now many people do wear linen today. Also cotton was also made in Egypt. Now lots of things are made from cotton. Like shirts, T-Shirts, Jackets, Pullovers, Sweaters, Pants, Skirts, Hats, Handkerchiefs, Socks, and Shoes.

This is an egyptian linen dress.