How the Ancient Egyptian Clothes Look Like

The ancient Egyptians made their own clothes from what their environment and nature gave them. Egypt has mostly a hot climate thus the use of clothes reflect material that is lightweight to suit this type of climate. The ancient Egyptians thus used clothes made of linen. The ancient Egyptians both men and women wore linen clothes all throughout the hot weather. The men wore short skirts around their waists called kilts, while the women wore straight fitting dresses with straps on their shoulders.

The wealthy men wore pleated kilts, and the older men wore a longer kilt. When doing hard work, men wore a loin cloth, and women wore a short skirt. Children usually ran around nude during the summer months. How linen make.?Linen is a fabric made from plant fibers. The plant fiber comes from flax plants that grow abundantly along the banks of the Nile. The flax plants are plants having small leaves, blue flowers and stems about two feet tall. Flax was pulled out of the ground, not cut. This work was done mostly by men. Half-ripe flax stems made the best thread. If the stems were too ripe, they were used for mats and rope. Flax stems were soaked for several days then fibers were separated. Then the fibers were beaten until soft. The resulting fibers are then spun into thread.

The thread is woven into linen fabric from which the garments are made. Most Egyptians wore garments made from linen. This type of fabric is light, airy, and allows freedom of movement, which are important characteristics because of the hot and sometimes humid climate of Egypt. In Ancient Egypt, women were predominately in charge of textile manufacturing and garment making. Garment making was a household chore, but woman also worked for aristocrats in spinning and weaving shops. Every garment from the decorative dresses of queens and the elaborate, pleated kilts of the pharaohs to the simpler kilts and aprons of the common people were handmade by woman. The tools involved in garment making include knives and needles, both of these needed to be molded, shaped or craved. In pre-dynastic times, knives were made out of stone and the needles were made from bones. However, during the Old Kingdom, they were both made out of copper. Then, in the Middle Kingdom, bronze replaced the copper. Knives and needles were molded. Surprisingly, the eyes of needles were not bored.

They were “scratched out with a hard, pointed instrument, probably a stone.” With these tools and linen, garments were fashioned to suit the needs of the people based on climate and the social status. . All men, from the tomb worker to the pharaoh, wore a kind of kilt or apron that varied in length over the years, from halfway above the knee, to halfway below it. It was tied at the front, folded in at the side, or in two knots at the hips. A sleeved, shirt-like garment also became fashionable. Men were always clean-shaven; they used razors made from bronze to shave their beards and heads. Women wore straight, ankle-length dresses that usually had straps that tied at the neck or behind the shoulders. Some dresses had short sleeves or women wore short robes tied over their shoulders. Later fashions show that the linen was folded in many tiny vertical pleats and fringes were put at the edges.

The wealthy people both men and women wore long see-through robes that were pleated. Noblemen would sometimes wear a long robe over his kilt, while the women wore long pleated dresses with a shawl. Some kings and queens wore decorative ceremonial clothing with feathers. Wealthy people wore sandals made of leather that had straps across the instep and between the first and second toes. Most people went barefoot, but wore sandals on special occasions. The king wore very elaborately decorated sandals and sometimes decorative gloves on his hands. The sandals were sometimes made of palm fiber or braided papyrus together with leather sandals.