What did people wear? The history of clothing (2024)

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What did people wear? The history of clothing (3)

History of clothing: Venus of Lespugue, ca. 25000 BC, now in the Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, wearing a grass or string skirt

The first clothing

Clothing was very expensive in the ancient and medievalworld, because without engine-powered machines it was very hard to make. So most people had very few changes of clothing. Many people owned only the clothes they were wearing.

Leather, fur, and grass skirts

Many children had no clothes at all, and just went naked. In the Stone Agemost clothing was made of leather or fur. Because leather and fur were expensive, for everyday clothes in warm weather many people wore skirts of woven grasses or string, or went bare.

Bronze Age: spinning and weaving

By the Bronze Age people had learned to spin yarn on a spindle and to weave cloth out of the yarn on looms. Although many clothes, especially coats, were still made out of leather or fur, most clothes were made out of wool (from sheep) or linen (from the flax plant), hemp or cotton. Some rich people wore silk. Because cloth was so hard to make, most people didn’t cut cloth to make clothing. They just wrapped big pieces of cloth around themselves. Or they wove cloth in the shape of a tunic.

Women and slavery

Almost as soon there was spinning and weaving, rich people started to capture and enslave hundreds of women to work in big factories making very beautiful fine clothing that the rich people could sell or give away to their supporters. Egyptian pharaohs made women prisoners spin very fine linen; Sumerian and Mycenaean kings made women prisoners spin fine wool; Chinese emperors made women prisoners spin beautiful silks. In India, women spun cotton into saris. The same thing happened in the Americas, where women also spun and wove cottonand agave.

New inventions: knitting and spinning wheels

These rich people were always looking for ways to make cloth cheaper and better, so inventors were always working on this problem. About 1000 BC, they were using nalbinding to make hats and socks. By 200 BC Chinese inventors were making steel sewing needles that the women used to make fancy embroidery and sew pleats and ruffles on expensive clothing. The invention of knitting, about 400 AD, let the factories make socks and hats much faster than nalbinding. In the Middle Ages, about 1200 AD, Chinese or Iranian inventors made the spinning wheel, which made spinning yarn go about four times as fast. But these new methods were mainly for expensive clothes. Regular people still had only one or two outfits.

What did people wear? The history of clothing (5)

History of clothing: Egyptian knitted sock (400s AD, now in Leicester)

Spinning Jenny

By this time, Europe was getting rich from selling wool cloth, and the next clothing inventions came from Europe. One was the knitting machine, in 1589 AD, and the next was the spinning jenny, in the 1700s. In Europe, both men and women started to wear more clothing, – aprons, caps, underwear, and knitted stockings. In the Americas, some Native people started to wear European-style clothing too.

Making clothing got cheaper as people got richer, and by the 1700s many people were wearing clothing made in factories. Instead of enslaved prisoners, now the rich people hired free women and children to work in textile factories, but for very low wages. They forced people in India to grow cotton to spin in their factories.

What did people wear? The history of clothing (6)

History of clothing: Enslaved African-Americans picking cotton

Cotton gin and the history of clothing

But the big revolution in clothing came at the very end of the 1700s, when Eli Whitney (and other people working about the same time) invented the cotton gin to get the seeds out of North American short-staple cotton. White men started enormous Southern plantations to grow huge amounts of cotton, forcing enslaved African-Americans to do the work for them. They sent most of the cotton on ships to England, where poor women and children ran factory machines spinning and weaving the cotton into cloth. For the first time, clothing became cheap enough that most people could change their clothes regularly. People started to wear more underwear. They started to put sheets on their beds and curtains at their windows. First men started to wear pants, then women did too.

What did people wear? The history of clothing (7)

Buy fair trade dresses, made by people getting good wages

What did people wear? The history of clothing (8)Cheap cotton and polyester

Even after the Civil War, most black people kept on picking cotton. But in the 1950s, scientists invented machines to pick cotton instead. Many black people lost their work, but cotton got even cheaper, and people started to throw away good shirts and dresses just because they were tired of them, or they had gone out of fashion. Scientists also invented polyester cloth made out of oil. Even today, most of the clothing you wear is made of cotton, grown in the southern United States, or of polyester, and spun and woven and sewn in Cambodia or Vietnam or any other poor country, where women and children will work for very low wages.

Did you find out what you wanted to know about the history of clothing? Let us know in the comments!

Learn by doing: check the labels and see what your clothing is made of and where it was made
North American clothing after 1500 AD

Bibliography and further reading about ancient and medieval clothing:

Eyewitness: Costume, by L. Rowland-Warne (2000). For kids, but mainly European clothing, from earliest times to modern.

Dazzling Disguises and Clever Costumes, by Angela Wilkes (2001). Make your own costumes – here are directions written for kids!

Clothing: A Pictorial History of the Past One Thousand Years, by Sue and John Hamilton (2000). Includes Africa and Asia, but only as far back as 1000 AD. Easy reading.

World Textiles: A Concise History, by Mary Schoeser (2003). For adults.

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By Karen Carr|2018-04-29T12:00:53-07:00June 8th, 2017|Clothing|Comments Off on What did people wear? The history of clothing

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About the Author: Karen Carr

What did people wear? The history of clothing (9)

Dr. Karen Carr is Associate Professor Emerita, Department of History, Portland State University. She holds a doctorate in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan. Follow her on Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook, or buy her book, Vandals to Visigoths.

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What did people wear? The history of clothing (2024)

FAQs

What did people wear? The history of clothing? ›

The first clothes were made from natural elements: animal skin, fur, grass, leaves, bone, and shells. Garments were often draped or tied; however, simple needles made out of animal bone provide evidence of sewn leather and fur garments from at least 30,000 years ago.

What clothes did people wear in the past? ›

Boys wore short trousers and in winter they wore overcoats. Girls wore dresses, often with cardigans or jumpers over them. Boys did not wear long trousers until they were teenagers, and girls did not wear trousers at all. In winter, girls often wore woollen tights and socks to keep warm.

What did early people use for clothing? ›

Humans used tree barks, leaves, and animal skins as a primitive form of clothing.

What was the first clothing in history? ›

In September 2021, scientists reported evidence of clothes being made 120,000 years ago based on findings in deposits in Morocco. According to Anthropologists and Archaeologists, the earliest clothing likely consisted of fur, leather, leaves, or grass that was draped, wrapped, or tied around the body.

What clothes did our ancestors wear? ›

The correct answer is...

Due to harsh climatic conditions, they had to protect themselves from the cold by wearing warm, waterproof clothing primarily made from animal skins and furs. The clothing might have been colored with ocher or decorated with pearls, bones, or animal teeth (as jewelry).

What did the first peoples wear? ›

Clothing. All First Nations across the country, with the exception of the Pacific Coast, made their clothing—usually tunics, leggings and moccasins—of tanned animal skin. Woodland and northern First Nations used moose, deer or caribou skin.

When did humans first wear clothes? ›

That study indicates that the habitual wearing of clothing began at some point in time between 83,000 years ago and 170,000 years ago based upon a genetic analysis indicating when clothing lice diverged from their head louse ancestors.

How did fashion start in history? ›

Fashion started when humans began wearing clothes. These clothes were typically made from plants, animal skins and bone. Before the mid-19th century the division between haute couture and ready-to-wear did not really exist.

What is the oldest clothing ever found? ›

The Tarkhan Dress, named for the Tarkhan cemetery south of Cairo in Egypt where it was excavated in 1913, is an over 5000 year old linen garment that was confirmed as the world's oldest piece of woven clothing.

What did people wear 1000 years ago? ›

The primary garment was the tunic — generally a long fabric panel, folded over with a neck-hole cut into the fold, and sleeves attached. It was typical for the wealthy to display their affluence with a longer tunic made of finer and more colorful cloth, even silk or silk-trimmed.

When did humans start covering their private parts? ›

Answer and Explanation:

It's thought that the rise of an agricultural society about 10,000 years ago brought about the idea of modesty, or covering of the sexual organs. Before agricultural society was established, men and women lived in small groups and were nomadic.

Did Adam and Eve wear clothes? ›

As per the biblical interpretation of Genesis 3:21, God produced coats of skin for the first man and woman Adam and Eve and clothed them when they were found naked in the garden after eating the forbidden fruit.

What are the 5 reasons why we wear clothes? ›

It will also cover the 5 reasons why we wear clothing: protection, adornment, identification, modesty, and status.

What did early humans wear as clothes? ›

The early man wore clothes made of animal skins during the winter months and clothes made from grass and bark of trees during the summer months. Explanation: The early man would hunt for animals to create clothes and boots from animal skins.

When did humans start talking? ›

Some scholars assume the development of primitive language-like systems (proto-language) as early as hom*o habilis, while others place the development of symbolic communication only with hom*o erectus (1.8 million years ago) or with hom*o heidelbergensis (0.6 million years ago) and the development of language proper with ...

When did humans first appear? ›

Humans first evolved in Africa, and much of human evolution occurred on that continent. The fossils of early humans who lived between 6 and 2 million years ago come entirely from Africa. Most scientists currently recognize some 15 to 20 different species of early humans.

What did people wear in the 1800s? ›

Instead, fashionable gowns were simple and restrained, featuring empire waistlines and white or pastel flowing fabrics. Men put aside their powdered wigs and donned tight-fitted trousers, high-collared linen shirts, and buttoned waistcoats in neutral blacks, blues, and browns.

What did they use for clothes in the olden days? ›

In ancient times people used barks and big leaves of trees or animal fur and skins for making clothes. The first clothing material discovered was made up of natural fibers produced from both plants and animals. Such examples include cotton, flax, wool, leather, silk, etc.

What did people wear in the 1900s? ›

Women still wore corsets and long skirts. Men still wore suits. A complete wardrobe included hats and gloves and, for women, often an umbrella. Edwardian fashion was opulent and formal, with expensive fabrics and trimmings.

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