3. Western Costume Customs

Western costume refers to the routine expression about regional scope, a concept contrary to the Orient. The core being Europe, western clothes can be traced back to Mesopotamia and Egypt, which differs sharply from Eastern clothes and represents an important part in human clothes.

（1）Ancient Western Costume Features

①Ancient Greece

Ancient Greek Culture was regarded as the birthplace of Western civilization about 4000 years ago, producing many magnificent achievements in areas of government, science, philosophy and the arts that still influence our lives. Clothing is in no exception.

Greek clothing usually consisted of long, flowing garments, head wreaths, and sandals, which derived from three significant civilizations：

·Minoan Clothing

The Minoan culture originated on the Greek island of Crete in about 3000 B. C. Minoans established a flourishing society around royal palaces and lasted for several hundred years. Professionals have excavated sites in Crete to find pottery, frescoes on the walls of palace remains, and statues, which present a vivid picture of Minoan culture, especially that of the wealthy citizens.

Minoan remains demonstrate that Minoan clothing suit the body contours and required profound knowledge of sewing techniques. Men wore a variety of waist coverings and hardly covered their upper bodies. Women wore tiered, bellshaped skirts and fitted short-sleeved tops that revealed the breasts. Minoans seemed to favor tiny waists, and both males and females wore tightly fitted belts, or girdles to fasten their waists down to a fashionably small size.

·Mycenaean Clothing

When the Minoan culture declined in about 1600 B. C., for mysterious yet unknown reasons, the Mycenaean culture began to thrive on mainland Greece and impacted Crete, where they encountered the Minoans. The remains of Minoan culture influenced the Mycenaeans who continued many of their clothing styles. Women's clothing is particularly difficult to distinguish from Minoan clothing. Women wore the same long skirts and short-sleeved tops; however, paintings imply that Mycenaean women did occasionally cover their breasts with a bib or blouse. Likewise, Mycenaean men seem to have worn loin coverings similar to the Minoans, but more frequently they are likely to wear short-sleeved tunics with a belted waist. It was the armor that genuinely characterizes Mycenaeans attire. Evidence reveals that Mycenaeans were warlike peoples. For battle Mycenaean soldiers wore protective clothing that mantled the body from neck to thigh in bronze plates, bronze leg guards, and helmets made of boar's tusks.

·Greek Clothing

With the Mycenaean culture suffering from famines and other environmental disasters in about 1200 B. C, another culture began to prosper. The Dorians, ancient Greeks, dominated and conquered the miserable Mycenaeans. Although no evidence about what Greeks wore has been excavated for life between the twelfth and the eighth centuries B. C, we can judge from examples of Greek art to learn that the ancient Greeks had a great taste for the beauty of the naked body. Early Greek society did not inhibit male public nakedness. Therefore, men always went naked when exercising or competing in athletic games, and both men and women bathed separately naked in public baths. Women were required to keep their bodies covered when they were with men.

By the seventh century B. C., Greek society was governed by a wealthy class who wore extravagant woven clothes and adorned jewelry. Greeks developed several distinct garment styles from this time until its defeat by the Romans in 146 B. C., In general, Greeks did not have the clothes cut or sewed until the fourth century B. C. Instead they draped finely woven cloth all over their bodies to create typical styles of dress and protection.

The Greek attire features class division. The wealthiest Greeks wear expensive wool and finely woven linen, an almost transparent and soft cloth. Common people used cloth woven from the flax plant soaked in olive oil, and peasants used textiles made of coarse wool. Chiton, or tunic is the most distinctive Greek clothes. There were two different styles: the Ionic chiton and the Doric chiton, using variations such as length to separate styles for males and females. Crinkles and pleats were adopted to reinforce the fullness of the drape. Over the chiton, Greeks wear various wraps such as himation, chlamys, chlaina, and diplax to gain warmth. By the fourth century B. C., sewn tunics with a U or V neckline began to be popular despite the continued fashion of drapes, with proofs being a set of tunic styles uncovered in a temple in Attica, a state of Greece that used to be the Greek cultural center.

With the marble sculptures being the sources of our major knowledge about Greek fashion, people took it for granted that white color was the only choices of most Greeks. On the contrary, experts currently learn that even the pale marble of the statues was once coated with bright paint that faded over the centuries. Actually Greeks loved color and many dyed their clothes. For instance, noble aristocrats wore purple clothes dyed from a species of shellfish or pure white linen robes. Women favored yellow clothes particularly. Black clothes were worn by those in memory of the death of a loved one. Peasants dyed their clothing with various colors: a variety of greens, browns, and grays. Soldiers wore dark red clothes to psychologically avoid the appearance of blood on the battlefield.

Besides dyeing, adorning designs were also painted, embroidered, or woven onto attire colorfully. Garments were also decorated with patterns of geometric shapes or dressed up with colorful border designs.

②Ancient Rome

Roman clothing owed much to that of ancient Greece, but it had distinct forms of its own.

·Clothing and Status

Dress for a Roman often is an indication of rank, status, or authority. The hierarchic and symbolic use of dress as a uniform or costume is undoubtedly an important part of Rome's legacy to Western civilization. Therefore, Much of Roman clothing was designed to expose the wearer's social status, particularly for free men.In typical Roman fashion, the higher social status the wearer had, the more distinctively marked his dress was, whereas the dress of the lowest classes was often without any mark.

In the above picture, for instance, we can make the judgment that the first man on the left is a Roman citizen（because he wears a toga）but is not an equestrian or senator（because he has no stripes on his tunic）. The next woman is married because she wears a stola. Colored shoes and the broad stripes on his tunic identify the next man as a senator, while the border on his toga indicates that he has held at least one curule office. The laurel wreath on the head of the next man and his special robes indicate that he is an emperor, while the uniform and cloak of the following man identify him as a general. It is more difficult to determine the exact social status of the two men on the right; their hitched-up tunics indicate that they are lower-class working men, but the two lowest social classes in Rome（freed people and slaves）did not have distinctive clothing that clearly indicated their status. These men could both be freed people（or citizens at work, for that matter）; however, the man in the brown tunic is carrying tools and the other man is lighting his way, so we can deduce that the man in the white tunic may be a slave of the other man.

·Common Styles

—The Tunic

The mostcommon clothes in Roman clothing was the tunic（tunica）, the standard dress of Rome. For most of Romans and slaves, the tunic would be the sole clothing they wear before going outdoors.

The male tunic would have the length of reaching knees while women's tu-nics would generally be longer, some even reaching to the ground. Female tunics often had long sleeves. However, it took a long time for men to find long sleeves acceptable. Before that it was perceived as highly lack of masculinity to wear one. In cold winter Romans would wear two or three tunics to keep warm.

A purple stripe worn over the tunic was called a clavus, symbolizing membership to a particular institution. So an equestrian could wear a tunic with two vertical narrow purple stripes on either side of the tunic, and a senator could wear a tunic having a vertical broad purple stripe down the center.

Under many circumstances, the richest form of the long-sleeved tunic, the dalmatica, took the place of the toga entirely in the later years of empire. At the same time, since the Germanic soldiers controlled the army ranks, long, close-fitting trousers were widely worn due to their influence.

—The Toga

The toga was the Roman national garment, which was made of a large woolen cloth with both straight and rounded edges in the early years of Rome. Designed for both males and females, it was not sewn or pinned but rather draped carefully over the body on top of the tunic.

An average toga extended between 2 and 3 meters long, and up to 2 meters wide. Togas were costly, heavy, and ponderous to wear; the wearer looked dignified and stately but would have found it hard to do anything very active. Despite that it was awkward to wear, citizens were supposed to wear togas for all public occasions.

The color of the toga matters significantly to discriminate differences in age and status: white for the common and purple for the officials and emperors.

By the middle of the Republican era, change had it that common prostitute were the only kind of women to wear togas. Unlike men, therefore, toga was used to symbolize the lack of respectability for women.It was strange that while the toga was a mark of honor for a man, it was a symbol of disgrace for a woman. Prostitutes of the lowest class, the street-walker variety, were compelled to wear a plain toga made of coarse wool to claim their identity, and there is some evidence that women convicted of adultery might have been obliged to wear“the prostitute's toga”as a punishment of shame.

—Stola and Palla

Compared with men's dress, fewer restrictions were imposed on women's dress by laws and conventions, and feminine attire can be of almost any color.

Stola was the most common female clothes worn over a long tunic. To display the layers of garment as well as to show off one's fortune and status, stola was shorter than the under tunic. Other ways of wealth exhibition was to add a wide ornamental border on the lower edge of either the under tunic or the stola.

Palla was a draped cloak that was just like a small version of toga, therefore less uncomfortable to wear. Palla features no particular size or shape, which can range from a large coat draped over the body to a piece of cloth no bigger than a scarf.

·Textiles and Dyes

Roman garments were typically made of wool. Women spun the fleece into thread and wove the cloth at home since the early Republic, and women from underprivileged classes continued the practice afterwards. However, by the late Republic, women from wealthy families stop spinning and weaving themselves, with slaves doing the household work or cloth bought in the market. Besides wool, rich Romans could afford to buy cloth made of linen, cotton, or silk.

In addition to spinning and weaving, many businesses were associated with textiles such as dyeing, processing, and cleaning. Clothes were cleaned by fullers using chemicals such as sulfur or even human urine. Status undoubtedly mat ters significantly in Rome, with Tyrian purple dye being one of the most expensive commodities available in the ancient world.

·Footwear

There were hardly any differences between men and women concerning Roman footwear. Sandals tied round the ankle with thin strips of leather were especially favored.

The calcei were the standard outdoor footwear for a Roman, coupled with toga as the national dress. It was a soft leather shoe, generally symbolizing a cross between a shoe and a sandal.

Sandals with open toes were appropriate for wearing indoors. There were many different designs, from the practical to elegant. When visiting, upper-class Romans took off their shoes at the door and slipped on the sandals that had been carried by their slaves.

There were definitely other types of footwear. The pero was a simple piece of leather wrapped around the foot; the caliga was the hob-nailed military boot/sandal and the sculponea was a wooden clog, worn only by poor peasants and slaves.

③Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine costume convention followed the route of the Roman Empire（27 B. C. -476 A. D.）, with its color and decorative tradition deriving from the Orient and the Middle East. The Roman roots were understandable. After all, the Byzantine Empire began in the fourth century.

The Byzantines obtained their basic clothing forms from the Romans: the tunic and toga for males, and the stola, a type of long dress, for females, as well as their shoes and hairstyles. These basic attire evolved into more ornate and luxurious style late in the Roman Empire; yet it was not long after the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 A. D. that the Byzantines start to make adjustment to the Roman costume tradition, thus forming something unique of their own.

By the end of the Roman Empire, the toga lost its dominance and was worn only on great events such as ceremonies since the Byzantines favored simple flowing clothes more than draping of the toga. Men wore the dalmatica, a long and flowing tunic, or shirt with wide sleeves and hem; women preferred stola.

Unlike the Romans, the Byzantines tended to be very conservative about any flesh exposure. They wear the clothes tight to the neck, with sleeves extended all the way to the wrist; and the bottom edge of their exterior garments reached all the way to the ground.

The Byzantine Empire witnessed the significant trade with the Middle East and the Orient. Byzantines were greatly appealed by the exotic fabrics and patterns, adopting those new elements into their costume tradition, finally leading to the multiple colors and ornamentations of the Byzantine garments. Deep reds, blues, greens, and yellows became common on the clothes of the well-to-do people, but purple, was still reserved for royalty. On foreign visiting occasions, Byzantine emperors costumed themselves in rich purple robes, shimmering with gold embroidery and jewels sewn onto the fabric.

Silk was particularly favored by the Byzantines among all the textiles. Silk was believed to be originated in China. However, two Persian monks, from what is modern-day Iran, smuggled silkworms out of China and began to produce silk within the Byzantine Empire in 552 A. D. Since then the Byzantines wove their silk into a strong fabric called samite, which sometimes had gold thread woven into the material. Immensely valuing the silk, wealthy Byzantines employed it to make a variety of garments as well as for embroidery.

In Rome Empire, strict laws imposed restrictions on different social classes concerning the clothes that they must wear. However, the Byzantines were free to choose the clothes they want to wear as long as they could afford it. But still, silk, jewels, and embroidery that distinguished Byzantine clothing could only be acceptable by the wealthiest due to their extremely high price. Most Byzantines wore much simpler versions of the common garments. Unfortunately, it was impossible to gain an insight of the clothes worn by the lowest class of citizens since they were unable to survive the passage of time, a phenomenon quite common in many ancient cultures. The remaining remnants of Byzantine culture—tile mosaics, statues, and paintings—merely reflect the costumes of the very rich or members of the church.

④Middle Ages

The Middle Ages（500 A. D. -1500 A. D.）was, as its name implies, a great transitional period lasting one thousand years. The European earliest civilization provider, Roman Empire, perished in 476, and the vast land of western Europe was controlled by the bands of nomad—Goths, Huns, Vandals, Franks, and others—who were viewed by the Romans as barbarians. These new Europeans retained the Catholic Church and the Latin language, yet most every other area of culture changed, with one of the most remarkable modifications being the area of clothing. The fine linen and silk togas and draped robes of the Romans were replaced by crude wool leggings and furlined tunics, or shirts. Meanwhile, the emerging kingdoms of Europe began to develop more elaborate costume traditions particularly in about the eleventh century. With the development of trade, travel, and wealth, clothing became more exquisite. By the end of the Middle Ages, Europe had formed distinctive and refined costume traditions of its own.

Unlike the Romans, nomad tribes used to live in a harsh environment of coldness. Cool weather and sheep herding customs led to the choice of wool as their primary fabric. The basic garment for both males and females throughout this period was the tunic: a thin under-tunic and a heavier over-tunic. The gender difference only lied in length, with women's tunics falling to the ground while men's tunics gradually shortened, a design similar to a modern shirt. Both sexes wore a belt around their tunics. Men typically wore leg coverings, in the forms of simple trousers early in the period with a hose and breeches, or short pants, later in the period. In winter, people, no matter the poor or the rich, wore a fur tunic to keep warm; yet the wealthy people were able to afford better and softer furs such as ermine, or weasels, and mink.

But still little is known about clothing in the early Middle Ages since early Europeans just buried their body underground, where their burial clothes quickly went ruined rather than preserving the bodies and clothing items in the protected tombs. Another reason was that Early Europeans seldom used paintings to record daily life realistically, most of their art revolving around religious subjects. Luckily, records for the period increased from about the eleventh century, a turning point in medieval fashion, with one key aspect being the distinction between male and female attire. Women continued to wear long robes made in separate pieces of fabric with a snug-fitting top or bodice matched to a flowing and bountiful skirt. Men's tunics, which used to reach the ankle, got much shorter, until by the 14th and 15th centuries they ended at the waist. Men also wore tight-fitting hose to reveal the shape of their legs.

The basic cause of this fashion breakthrough was the appearance of the professional tailor. In the past, people had made their own clothes or, rich people wore clothes made by the servants. Therefore, most clothes were rather simple. Later on, skilled craftsmen began to form the trade of tailoring, making, repairing, and altering clothes who developed their skills and soon made tailoring a job for men instead of women.By 1300 roughly seven hundred tailors worked in Paris, France and they cultivated new cutting and sewing methods that allowed for more fitting and intricate clothing.

All in all, the Middle Ages was perhaps the last period in European history when clothing was principally a simple living necessity rather than luxurious，ever-changing fashion.

⑤The Baroque Period

The Baroque period lasted from the early 1600s to the mid-1700s. It was a time of indulgence and impracticality mirrored by extreme ornaments, a trend started from France then impacted the entire European continent.

Baroque fashion featured flamboyance, with typical large, ruffled collars and oversized, balloon-like sleeves. Costly fabrics such as velvet, silk, and brocade were frequently applied. Vivid colors, ribbons, and beaded embroidery were typical of baroque fashion. Overall, looser clothing were prevailing for the purpose of free movement, with the corsets worn by women being the exception, which exhibited the beauty of female figure by creating a narrow waistline with the decoration of embroidery, ribbons, and bows. Corsets were uncomfortable to wear since no flexible fabrics were available at that time. Meanwhile, collars on women's clothing were smaller than men's collars since female necklines were lowered to highlight the bustline.

Baroque fashion differed greatly from current fashion in its emphasis on male dress: First, women covered their legs even their ankles with long dress, whereas men showed theirs off by wearing tight breeches ending at the knee and silk stockings decorated with embroidery to arouse attention to their legs.

Second, Men's styles were generally more eye-catching than women's with the employment of plumed hats, laced cuffs, and brighter colors. Wigs were applied to demonstrate their wealth and social position. Besides, men wore highheeled shoes decorated with bows. Their hairstyles generally reached their shoulders and sometimes flowing down past the waist. Goatees and mustaches were both popular.

Cotton, an import, was rejected during this time for the unity of the European textile market. Therefore, upper-class turned to linen as the material for undergarments, although it was not considered fine enough for outerwear.

The colors and patterns of the clothes worn by different classes were dis tinct. The upper class wore pastels and bright colors. In the early Baroque period, they preferred large floral patterns, but later, small scrolling floral patterns and stripes were more favored. Comparatively, the middle class viewed dark colors as a means of displaying their wealth since dying these colors was more demanding and thus more expensive. The poor wore light, dingy shades because dyes of pure colors were barely affordable to them.

⑥The Rococo Period

The Rococo was the last period（1715-1789）in which courtly fashion gained the dominance which was characterized by a visible improvement in living standard. The Demand for rich fabrics and precious jewelry explodes. Thus, wealth was not the only aspect mattered concerning the choice of clothes, education and aesthetics worded as well.

Compared with men's clothing, women's underwent considerable change in the 18th Century. The stiff pomp that once prevailed at the court was gradually eliminated. The negligee, a“morning robe”was not only worn at home, producing a trend of simple upper garments.

After the tall, narrow look of the 1680s and 1690s, the European fashion in the following fifty years was characterized by a unisex widening, full-skirted silhouette. White wigs remained essential for men of substance; natural hair was powdered to achieve the fashionable look.

Separation was made in this period between full dress worn at Court and for formal occasions, and undress or daytime clothes. With the advance of times, increasingly fewer occasions called for full dress which had all but receded by the end of the century.

（2）Contemporary Western Costume Features

①19th Century

·Men's Dress

The early 19th century witnessed an utter change in men's fashions. The coat was cut higher in front, with the waist-length square-cut waistcoat showing under it. In the early 19th century some dandies wore boned corsets to give them a small waist.

Gradually long trousers replaced knee breeches, and the former became increasingly fashionable in the first quarter of the 19th century. During the second half of the 19th century men retained the white waistcoat and black tail-coat and trousers of the early 19th century for evening wear. For day wear they wore a frock coat with straight trousers, a short waistcoat and a shirt with a high stiff collar. The single-or double-breasted frock coat fitted quite closely to the torso and had a waist seam. The skirts were straight and finished at mid-thigh or below. The front of the coat was square cut. Hair was still styled but by the late 19th century it was short and cut close to the head. Many men wore beards and moustaches.

·Women's Dress

The 19th century witnessed more changes on women's garments, the basic one being more revealing in the figure of the body. In the 1820s and 1830s the waistline was deepened, returning to its natural position. Lightly boned and quilted corsets were remained. Some petticoats of the 1840s were feather-quil-ted. Later examples of the 1850s and 1860s were made of ‘crin' and steel hoops.

Bonnets and hats were worn until the 1860s when small, elegant styles appeared, just perching on top of the head and smaller ones appeared a couple of years later with hairstyles becoming popular in the form of elaborate chignons. Later, small hats decorated with birds and feathers and artificial flowers were in fashion.

By the 1880s, the upper class women began to adopt artistic dress, a simpler and easier style, which was cut far more loosely than traditional attire and did not require restrictive corsetry to be worn.

During the late 19th century, women's hair usually were arranged on the top of the head in a bun and puffed out around the face. A large-brimmed hat would be fastened on with hat pins except for smaller hats on informal occasions. The skirt was floor length with a slight train with the waist remaining small. In the 1890s, the top of the sleeves were sometimes puffed into an enormous leg of mutton' shape which required lightweight stiffening or padding. Women shifted to a simple and rather masculine-looking shirt, jacket and skirt for day wear.

Towards the end of the 19th century, it was evident that the pace of fashion change quickened. Meanwhile, the growing publicity of women's fashion periodicals facilitated home dress-making during the second half of the 19th century.

②20th Century

With the development of the fashion and media industry, the people's garment experienced even greater changes by the 20th century.

·Men's Dress

People's attire became simpler in the early 20th century. Men's suits became more casual, featuring a larger torso with enlarged shoulder pads and double-breasted buttoning. Plaid patterning caught on during this period, as well as other textures such as herringbone and houndstooth. Besides, blazers also become popular summer daytime attire under the influences of university and sporting colors and markings.

The post-war fashion witnessed young men as the leader to guide trend, with the older men being the followers. The colored, casual buttondown shirt was first introduced as beachwear, and was quickly seen on men globally. Suits were still popular, but the post war culture demanded a revolt from the identical look of matching pants and jackets. Ties of different patterns add to the variety of a man's attire, sparking a revolution in the way men would think about clothing in the coming decade.

In the 1950s, males favor bright shirts and casual narrow pants. Short sleeved shirts were also popular. Meanwhile, streetwear takes the dominance with denim jeans being the representative.

A decade later, men's suits tended to be modern, slim and feminine as well with the styles being tighter, coupled with more color and patterns. Velvet was widely used as a major fabric and men's shoes were even pointier. Sportswear emerged in the 1970s since sneakers and T-shirts were popular a mong young men.The 1980s saw the first emergence of couture culture for men especially in business wear.

The late 1990s saw many revivals from previous year, the mode of the 1960s, the 1970s color and later, the khaki period, which saw men of all ages take tips from golfing and other sporting fashion with Dockers and cargo-style pants.

·Women's Dress

Female clothes featured the mature and full-figured body, with dress styles being low busted and hips curved. Skirts used to be long, similar to wedding gowns. But gradually it grew shorter, revealing the ankle. The overall silhouette of dresses also changed slightly, moving toward a narrower, straighter line.

From 1910, bustles and trains were removed from dresses to reveal new ar-eas of skin. However, flapper styles of short skirts, low waistlines, and bobbed hair characterized women's attire in the late 1920s. During this time, women were liberated from constricting clothes and favored trousers and short skirts.

The styles of the flapper era lasted from the 1920s to the early 1930s before the Great Depression of more conservation. Later on, skirts became longer and highlighted the natural waistline of dresses since a more conventional feminine look was highly valued.

The 1930s witnessed the first distinction between day and evening clothes. Simple skirts and pared-down outfits allowed for ease of mobility in the daytime, while new fabrics such as metallic lamé became popular for more luxurious evening wear. The rayon, newly improved and synthetic fabric, became important during the 1930s, coupled with cotton and silk remaining to be the primary fabric of most dresses.

During the Second World War, due to the lack of materials, all types of cloth were needed for wartime purposes. Therefore, women wore shorter skirts and blocky jackets. Buttons were reduced to three for every clothing item. Nylon stockings were scarcity, and women were used to wear ankle socks and bare legs.

By the 1940s and 1950s, women were tired of the utilitarian, minimalist clothing of the wartime era, chasing elegance and luxury that had been discarded during the wartime. During this period, the clothes featured rounded shoulders, full skirts, and narrow waists with luxurious and expensive fabrics, coupled with ornaments.

During the 1960s and 1970s, bell bottoms, increasingly short miniskirts, hot pants and blue jeans became popular. Power and money dominated the styles of the 1980s, with women favoring expensive business suits and dresses during the day and extravagant gowns in the evening. But by the 1990s, women started to choose more comfortable and casual clothing such as Flannel shirts and ripped jeans under the influence of the grunge movement in rock and roll while the rising hip-hop movement brought baggy pants into fashion. Anyhow, comfort remained the major factor in clothing choice for most women in the 1990s and 2000s. Even standards for work relaxed somewhat, and casual dresses and pants became popular workplace attire.