Welcome back to another fashion history and evolution article. The contents of this article cover time periods from the fourth to the fifth centuries. Fashion is a timeline of humanity and our achievements and progression. For every garment, accessory, pair of shoes, and every minor or large detail lies in meaning, message, and use.
Fourth Century (301 C.E. to 400 C.E.)
Persia, or modern-day Iran, is a term used prior to the change in 1935 by Reza Shah. There are not that many surviving historical garment evidence around today, but historians use persistent sculptures as evidence and estimate what the Persians could have worn. The everyday Persian male wore long trousers secured into ankle boots, a tunic that was covered by a kandys, a long-sleeved coat. The Persian women’s fashion is inferred to consist of bodices (made of leather), full-length trousers, apron-cut tunics, and shawls. Silhouette-wise or fit, there were fitted, regular, or tight fits. Moreover, during the Sasanid Period (224-651 C.E.), common textiles included narrow back-strap loom(weave), leather, and natural fibers.
During this period of the Persian Empire, they were known for detailed and intricate designs. Especially with their version of the Greek chiton, they added long sleeves and wore it with kandys.
Fifth Century (401 C.E. to 500 C.E.)
The Early Middle Ages in Europe began with the collapse of the Roman Empire and ended towards the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries. Common fabric materials include linen, wool, and silk. Silk was worn by the wealthy upper middle class (monarchs, clergy, lords and ladies, and knights) in the feudal caste system, traded from the Byzantine Empire. Furthermore, the upper middle class wore more decorated, colorful clothing, while lower-class serfs and peasants wore tunics and sandals, mainly male, and the female lower-class wore the same, but with a longer tunic. Along with that, they wore dull earth colors unlike nobility.
For clarity, a tunic is a loose, androgynous, article of clothing, without (long) sleeves, which is either knee length or ankle length. A frequent pattern in fashion history is that clothing in general, especially with color and quantity of clothes, is based on status, profession, wealth and relationship status. The pattern strikes back again to the Early Middle Ages, but this in Europe at the time was a sumptuary law. A sumptuary law is, is regulation spending funds on food, dress, travel, etc.
The evolution of humanity shows patterns and glimpses of the past and the future. To learn and predict the future, one must know the past and occasionally reflect back on it to see similarities, to learn from mistakes and make improvements. Fashion history can tell us more than just what was popular at the time, it tells us the natural fabrics (made from plants and animals) that illustrates the climate and types of flora inhabited that area in time, the cultural/social environment and the standards, rises in intelligence/discovery, and how industrialization has come so far.
