Dress.
Boys commonly wore only the chiton. The young men, from the age of seventeen to twenty, called the ephebi, instead of the himation wore the chlamys, which was an oblong cloth, thrown over the left shoulder and the open ends were fastened over the right shoulder with a clasp. The himation of Sparta was smaller than that at Athens, scarcely covering the person, and which was called the tribon. The women wore the chiton and the himation and in addition they wore another garment over the chiton, called the crocotos, which sometimes had sleeves and was of a rich purple or saffron color and frequently had a broad border of embroidery. The Doric maidens usually wore but a single loose woolen garment. It was without sleeves and fastened over the shoulders with clasps. It usually extended about half way to the knees, it was worn with or without a girdle, and the left side was left open, which might or might not have been fastened with a buckle or clasp.
The garments were made of linen, cotton, or wool, and in later times silk also was used. White was, perhaps, the prevailing color and yet many colors were used, as, purple, red, green, yellow, gray, brown, olive, azure, cherry, and changeable colors. If the entire dress was not colored, it might have had colored borders, embroidery, or stripes, worked in or sewed on, and sometimes there were fringes or tassels. The undergarment, in time of mourning, was sometimes black.
The Greeks, both men and women, were especially careful of the hair. The men wore their hair and beard long and they had the hair curled or braided and bound up in a large bunch on top of the head or it might be arranged along the forehead and kept in place with golden grasshoppers. Dandies went to extremes and let their hair grow till it fell down on the shoulders. Most of the men had thick hair. In the cities the men usually went bareheaded but sometimes they wore hats or caps, when at work and on journeys.
The Grecian women for the most part had long, rich hair and, naturally, they took even more care of it than did the men with their hair. Sometimes it was allowed to fall loosely down the back; sometimes the hair was combed over the back in waving lines and a ribbon tied around the head; it might be that the front hair was combed back over the temples and ears and tied at the back of the head in a knot, held in place with hairpins of ivory, bronze, bone, gold, or silver; and there were many other ways of keeping the hair.
The hair of children was carefully attended to. The girls' hair was often twisted into artistic curls and then drawn together over the forehead and held by a fancy comb. In Sparta the boys' hair was kept short till their majority had been reached, when it was allowed to grow long. Among the Athenians the hair of the boys was permitted to grow till they had reached maturity, when it was cut off and burned to some deity, after which it was allowed to grow long again.
There were oils, perfumes, ointments, and essences for the hair. Curling-irons were in use for curling the hair. Powders were used on the hair and especially the kind that gave it an auburn color. There were dyes for the hair and they were well resorted to. Nets were used by the ladies to enclose their hair, and veils of a light fabric and of transparent texture were worn. On festive occasions wreaths and garlands were worn by both men and women.
Among the Greeks the hands were not usually covered, gloves rarely being worn. The feet were not covered in the house and even sometimes in the street there was no covering to the feet. There was a great variety of foot-wear from the simple sandal to the high boot, the three main kinds being the sandal, the shoe, and the boot.
The sandal was the simplest form of foot-covering. This consisted of a sole of wood or leather, or it might be two pieces of leather with a piece of cork between. This was held on the foot by means of a strap or thong passing between the big toe and the next and running back along the top of the foot and fastened to another strap going over the instep and another that passed round the back of the heel. Occasionally slippers were worn, which among the women were ornamented with needle work.
From the sandal was evolved the half shoe, covering the front part of the foot, and then the shoe, covering all the foot, which arose from the addition of a closed heel and smaller or larger side-pieces sewed to the sole. The working-people of both town and country had the soles studded with iron nails, while the dandy in the city might have had gold or silver nails in his shoes. The women regulated their stature, increasing or diminishing the height, by means of high or low heels and soles of different thickness. The children at Athens began to wear shoes at an early age. In the boot the covering reached to the calf of the leg, open in front, and fastened with laces.
In the footwear was where novelty and taste was shown by the Greeks. There was fashion in shoes and they often were named for those who originated the styles. They were very careful about neatness of fit and appearance. It was not considered good taste to wear patched or mended shoes. Black, white, and colored shoes were worn. Blacking was used, which was a kind of polish. The material was usually leather but felt also was used and slippers were sometimes made of linen. Socks and stockings seem to have been worn, but they were not in common use.
In the heroic times of Greece, as described by Homer, men wore earrings, necklaces, armlets, fancy girdles, hair ornaments, and finger-rings. In later times all these were discarded except the finger-rings, and these were usually signet rings. The women continued to use all kinds of ornaments. They wore both signet and jeweled rings on their fingers, some of the latter being set with beautiful and costly jewels; they wore necklaces of many patterns, varying from the simple ring to elaborate pendants; they wore armlets, bracelets, and anklets, usually in the form of spiral snakes; they wore a diadem or fillet to keep the hair in place; they wore ornamented girdles. The ornaments mentioned above were usually of gold and adorned with gems, as they used many kinds of precious stones.
The ladies dyed their hair and bleached it and increased its amount by adding other hair; they used tooth-powder; they blackened their eyebrows; a dark complexion was whitened and one too pale was rouged; their lips were touched with vermillion. To aid in this decorating, they had mirrors, which were made of bronze and usually circular, either without a handle or with one richly adorned.
The ladies had parasols, much like the ones at present, which could open and shut by means of wires, and which they carried themselves or had servants to hold over them. They had fans of peacocks' feathers or of thin light wood. Canes were used by the men both in Sparta and Athens, which were mostly of great length and with crook handles.
The ladies of Old Greek times well understood how to adorn, enhance, and remodel the human figure. As was stated above, they hung on to the figure all kinds of ornaments—rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, etc.; they could curl and dye and increase the amount of hair; they painted and powdered the cheeks and eyebrows and lips; they knew how to increase or diminish the stature by means of the heels and soles of the shoes; and they knew the art of enlarging or diminishing the figure by means of corsets and padding. Not only did they know all these things, but also they understood how to display to best advantage any part of the figure that was beautiful, as, a woman having pretty white teeth knew how and when to laugh to best display them and the handsome mouth.