Fashions of Egypt: Making the Kilt Cool before the Scottish did

Everyone is familiar with the stereotypical ancient Egyptian. Their wonderful lack of detail in art has resulted in an image of a ‘funny guy walking sideways’ in popular consciousness. This (arguably) simplistic style has its drawbacks- when attempting to reconstruct the clothing worn by the Egyptians, it becomes incredibly difficult.

The Ancient Egyptians: Incapable of Looking Forwards

With every society, you can tell a lot about someone’s social status by the clothes they wear. This was no less true for Egypt, where the small elite could dress in fabrics of their choice, while the poor may have worn loincloths, and slaves may have worn nothing at all. Nevertheless, most clothing for all members of society appears to have been made from only one or two pieces of fabric, knotted together as the wearer desired.

Women are often depicted in tightfitting white dresses, known as a kalasaris. This simple garment was the typical dress for any Egyptian woman, usually a tunic held up by one or two pieces of fabric. Realistically, these dresses would not have been as tight as they appear on tomb and temple walls. The Egyptians had a fantastic sense of simplicity when approaching their art, believing it didn’t have to appear realistic, so long as there was a good amount of symbolism behind it. Thus, to paraphrase one lecturer I have had, of course women were depicted in tight dresses, or if you couldn’t see their breasts, how would you know they were women?

Some Women, in the tight Kalasaris

Men could wear tunics as well, but fabulously preceding the Scottish in fashion sense, also wore kilts. The stiff triangular appearance of the kilt in most art makes it hard to imagine what it may have looked like when worn. By the New Kingdom (c.1500-1000 BCE) some more defined imagery suggests it likely had more material and layers, but again, the Egyptians drew what they liked rather than what they saw, and thus we are left with wall paintings of men in very pointy skirts.

Honestly- Who wore it better?

Almost all our remaining depictions of Egyptian clothes suggests they were white, though this by no means assures us white was the only colour the Egyptians wore. It was certainly an important colour, and perhaps the most common, but black, representing the mud in the fertile Nile valley, was also worn. Red was perhaps less common, due to associations with Seth (the god of destruction and chaos). The tomb of Nebamun, a New Kingdom official, has some wonderfully vibrant images, depicting women in luxurious golden cloth, which certainly suggests there was some variation on white, at least in elite dress.

Beautiful Golden Clothing in the Tomb of Nebamun

I don’t want to dive into hair at the moment- I feel it is a broad topic which fully deserves its own post or series of posts (though I will shamelessly plug another blog I write for, whichhas an interesting section on Egyptian Beards). Jewellery, and particularly magic amulets, is another topic I would like to explore in more depth than is afforded in one post. Therefore I will end here for now, and hopefully talk more about accessories and hair styles when I have had a chance to do more research!

-Rachael

Image References
https://hermionesknapsack.wordpress.com/tag/egyptian/
https://uk.pinterest.com/malatk23/the-ancient-middle-east-chapter-2/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nebamun_tomb_fresco_dancers_and_musicians.png
http://nationalclothing.org/16-nationalclothing/europe/scotland/9-national-dress-of-scotland-men-s-and-ladies-kilt.html
https://uk.pinterest.com/karmenradjenovi/egypt/

Bibliography:
Condra, J. (ed.) 2008. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing through World History, Volume 1. Westport, CN and London
Nicholson, P.T and Shaw, I. (eds.) 2000. Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge.
Tierney, T. 1999. Egyptian Fashions. Mineola, NY.