What Tech Level is your Fantasy Part 3
So, I’m going to start this one with something really important: Clothing.
We take clothes for granted (except when we’re that broke) and if we think about what people in the past wore, it’s typically…well…I have a set of RenFaire garb in my closet, and that’s about it.
But what your character is wearing does matter, so I’m going to talk about clothing for a bit. Note that I’m not a textiles expert or geek so if you really want to go down this particular rabbithole…I’m not the perfect person, but let’s do what I can.
When Did We Start Wearing Clothes?
Clothing is uniquely human. Other animals may decorate their bodies, but nobody else wears clothes. It’s not entirely because we lost our fur. The narrative that we started wearing clothes when we moved into colder climates?
Not true.
We can actually identify when we started wearing clothes pretty precisely…because human body lice (as opposed to head lice) didn’t exist until we started putting clothes on.
So. About 170,000 years ago. Before we migrated out of Africa. Clothes allowed us to migrate out of the tropics, but they didn’t come about because of that.
In fact, we wore clothes for 70,000 years before leaving Africa. Was this because of temperature drops associated with the ice age?
(Neanderthals may have started wearing some kind of clothing far earlier, given they did live in the cold part of the world).
That’s the lead theory, and there are certainly still tropical groups that wear little or no clothing.
Needles appear to have been invented about 40,000 years ago, so that’s about when we started wearing tailored clothing…and clothing started to serve purposes other than protection and staying warm.
Clothing as Art
We don’t know when the first fashion designer lived, but clothing may have become art very early. It might have been that we started by making marks on fur cloaks or robes to distinguish them and declare ownership. But patterns on clothes may be almost as old as clothes themselves.
Once we had tailored clothing, then we started to have, well, style. Clothing began to indicate things like status and gender. In some hunter gatherer groups, only adults wear clothing.
The Bible mentions a “coat of many colors” as a very expensive and high status garment. Dyes would have been used on clothing, bodies, and surfaces (such as cave art). Colors may have indicated status…or personal preference.
But clothing likely served a secondary decorative purpose right from the start.
The Clothes Make The Person
Clothing indicated status in some very simple ways. You had to be rich to afford certain dyes and materials, for example.
In more complex societies, this became codified in sumptuary laws. Which were honored far more in the breach than in the observance. (Sumptuary laws could also cover other things, such as household furnishing).
In the Roman Empire, only the Emperor and those closest to him were allowed to wear purple because of the extreme value of the dye. The only purple dye they had required the sacrifice of thousands of snails to dye one garment. Only citizens could wear togas.
In Elizabethan England, only nobles could wear silk, satin, and velvet. Meanwhile, among the puritans, people of “mean condition” weren’t allowed fancy clothing, such as gold or silver lace.
The darker side is when specific groups are forced to wear something to identify them. Most often in European history this has meant Jews. The yellow star had a long and sordid history, with yellow badges in various forms being forced on Jewry for centuries.
Clothing and Gender
Sumptuary laws can also determine what clothes you are allowed to wear based on your gender, and we do mean the “Were you born with a penis” definition here.
Gendered clothing can also be enforced by tradition and custom. But in parts of Renaissance Europe, there was a limit to how low a woman’s decolletage could be.
And we still have gendered sumptuary laws today. It is typically legal for a man to go topless…but not a woman. School dress codes are another example. Is there a lot of difference between the Renaissance requirement for a neckline of a certain height and “skirts can’t be above the fingertips?” Methinks not.
In the west, social tradition prevents men from wearing skirts unless they’re of a certain cut and we call them kilts. This isn’t a legal requirement, and men do buck it. But until not that long ago, women weren’t allowed to wear pants and/or it wasn’t acceptable.
Most societies have some way in which your clothing indicates your gender.
Supporting The Girls
Okay, so, let’s talk about the humble brassiere. The modern bra was not invented until 1914, so what did women do before then to stabilize (and show off) their boobs?
Primitive bras may have existed as early as the 15th century. We also know that Roman women wore simple breast bands that wrapped around the breast and tied or pinned at the back (likely requiring a second person) when engaged in athletic activities during which bouncing might be annoying.
Corsets were dominant from the 16th century through the 19th. The extreme corseting of the Victorian era was a fad…for most of their use, corsets were not that tight, although they were pretty firm. The modern garb bodice is a corset. Some modern women prefer corsets when wearing a strapless dress…they can be more comfortable than a strapless bra.
Breast supporters showed up in the later nineteenth century and evolved into bras, but they were much more rigid.
About half of the first designers of bras were, in fact, women. Bras became the standard female undergarment in the 1910s…and remain so to this day. We use all kinds of different devices.
So, it’s not impossible that your female adventurer is, indeed, wearing some kind of bra, even pretty early. If she’s wearing a corset, then trust me when I say you can run, shoot, fight, ride a horse, etc, in a well-fitted corset with no problems whatsoever.
Steampunk armored corsets? Yes, entirely feasible.
Fabrics
So, what are your clothes made of? It depends on how rich you are and wear you live. Wool was the gold standard for warm clothing for centuries and many still swear by it today. Wool requires some kind of wool producing animal and is typically only cheap and readily available in…the cold climates it’s most desirable in. it works.
Medieval England’s primary export was wool.
Silk is produced by insects, and is labor intensive to produce, hence the expense. Cheaper synthetic alternatives don’t show up until you have plastic.
Linen is the most likely lightweight fabric people in a temperate climate are wearing. It’s easy to grow (from the flax plant) and work with and takes dyes well. Cotton would be more affordable in hot, wet climates.
Leather can be made from any large animal, so assuming your people are farming cows or some equivalent, they have leather for clothes and shoes…and, of course, armor. Leather can be made from mushrooms, but this requires more technology. People in the past aren’t likely to be vegan…but you can swing it.
Fur, of course, is the ultimate warm garment. Fur was also a sign of wealth, especially the fur of smaller animals…ermine-trimmed robes were fashionable because you needed to kill like a dozen stoats to make one, and there’s not much to be done with the rest of the stoat.
Sorry, stoats, I do think your fur looks better on you.
A cheap option for fur in a lower tech level? Rabbit fur. Rabbits were raised for meat throughout northern Europe and no doubt the fur from those rabbits was made into gloves and hats. You can make a rabbit fur coat. I know somebody who had one.
Clothing as Heirlooms
So, here’s a last note.
We take fast fashion for granted. I do have some clothing that was inherited, and a denim jacket I’ve had for thirty years, but we think nothing of buying a shirt, wearing it for a few years, then giving or throwing it away.
Not so before mass production!
Women in the past wore their best dress for their wedding and didn’t have a special wedding dress. And they might be the third generation wearing that dress! Clothes were looked after, mended, and passed down. Your last kid’s clothing? You would give it to a younger couple for their first kid…hand-me-downs were normal and new clothes were for very special occasions.
Consider that when clothing your adventurers. Only a rich woman would have multiple dresses (that’s where not wearing the same dress comes from). Only a rich man would have a wardrobe full of clothes.
And when clothes fell apart, you used them as cleaning rags.
Clothes were valuable.
There’s a lot of people who know more about this than me, but I hope I have you a few things to think about. And if you’re really curious about period clothing, talk to reenactors who make it. They might even have some for you to try on!