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Draping the chiton
#16
Very nice chiton,nice pleates and the wool softness looks good. I would also suggest trying to make the pleating closer to the center so the side curves are more distinguished.
Something i have noticed is that the exomis is a relatively late fifth garment. So usually it lacks the lower curves,having a more undefined pleating. In fact i suspect that the exomis was made without stitching one side down,leting the right thigh moving free,potentially incovered. I have even thought that perhaps the chlamis was transformed to an exomis if needed.
Khaire
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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#17
I think it is possible that the chiton, the chlamys, etc are one garment. At least, if you take soft wool in 60 x 90 you can make ANY Greek garment--well, a little small for a himation.
Qui plus fait, miex vault.
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#18
it's not a chiton but...[Image: Fibula_by_Lemures87.jpg]
it's just a fibula for my clamys Tongue
Non auro sed ferro recuperanda est patria
Nulla alia gens tanta mole cladis obruta esset
[Image: vasolib30240105up4.jpg]

Francesco Saverio Quatrano
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#19
I would like to be to speculate on the nature of Greek dress. Just a little.

When reading about Roman clothing, especially late Roman clothing I often meet the idea of “the wide” Coptic loom. These are always wider than our modern looms, and always seem to magically produce a garment that stretches from wrist to wrist.

I suppose if I was an army contractor approaching a village to produce a certain number of tunics to a set pattern a certain uniformity of size and design would result.

But I like to think for the approach of the winter season if I wanted a scarf or a set of table napkins for my Christmas feast these wide Coptic looms could produce small items without the need for cutting and hemming. Reducing the number of warp threads would produce a narrow piece of cloth. I have a hand-woven woollen scarf produced on a wide loom.

Now let’s move to a house in Athens with the women producing cloth. Frankly any piece of cloth used for a chlamys can be folded double, pinned, pulled through a belt etc. to produce a chiton. I remember once at an event I leant out all my spare posh tunics to new recruits for the final parade just in time for a torrential rainstorm to hit. The campsite afterwards looked like some sort of laundry with washing lines hung between tents and trees. Funny until I realised I hadn’t a dry tunic to my name. I used a dry blanket made a perfectly acceptable tunic with two brooches and certain je ne sais quoi. To the ancients a piece of cloth has its own beauty and its weave and size would allow a variety of functions. But too often it seems to me that we want our reproduction clothing to be made in accordance with modern perceptions of size in small, medium and large with collar size clearly labelled.

It’s fair to say most garments were not cut and sewn. But the picture is often more complicated than we would like and Greek pictures tell a complicated often incomprehensible tale. The illustrated “cord” visible running along the top edge of some garments would suggest that the material has been cut and edged using the “cord”. Imagine a 90” by 90” piece of carefully woven wool. By cutting it in half you get two 45” by 90” pieces of wool able to make two chitons. Sorry for the iffy plural. You can sew the cut edge to some cord to seam the garment. At the same time the cord allows you to fasten the garment at the shoulders in a variety of ways. This would be quicker than making two bits of 90” by 45” cloth on the same loom. Q.E.D.

I like this “cord” edged design since I’m unlikely to find a 45” wide piece of material with nice selvage edges.

After a few weeks my nice new Greek tunic is now suitably stained, worn and repaired. The wool is coping with my armour, but mail would rip it apart in short order. I would like some more quality wool for Catherine to make another. Leeds market has excellent material stalls and will be worth a visit before Christmas.
John Conyard

York

A member of Comitatus Late Roman
Reconstruction Group

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.comitatus.net">http://www.comitatus.net
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.historicalinterpretations.net">http://www.historicalinterpretations.net
<a class="postlink" href="http://lateantiquearchaeology.wordpress.com">http://lateantiquearchaeology.wordpress.com
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#20
John, do you have the "City fo London" museum series on textiles and cloth in the 14th c.? My copy is out on lone so I can't give you the exact citation, but it discusses in depth the use of various selvedges--including cord--woven in.

I don't think there's anything "wrong" with anything you said above. i'm sure that at some point Greeks cut cloth. But IN GENERAL, I think that they wove to size when they could, or wore what they ended up with...

I never answered your question about billowing cloth in arming scenes. My apologies. Here are two looks often seen (and conveniently, they are in one scene!). With due respect to the Beazely Archive, this is a 500BC-450BC red-figure vase.

[Image: 4169408695_0f57f489a1_o.jpg]

The central figure has the "flouncy" appearance in the upper p[art of his chiton or chitoniskos that is sometimes taken to be sheepskin. But I can get this same effect with soft. hand woven wool by washing it and leaving more than half free (and "billowy" while I iron and pleat the lower half. If you pull way more above the "waistbelt" than you need, you get this effect--and it wears very comfortably under armor. Even more important, al that excess fabric pads itself--so a soft open weave wool doesn't tear or drag on the inside of one's scale shirt..

Next to the central figure, on the left, is another variation. this gentleman is wearing about the same amount of fabric, but his slaves have pressed all of it and pleated it, so that the excess hangs down from the shoulders in what many people call a "peplos" fold. (And don't get me started on this.) However, you can clearly see the lower edge of the fabric and the way the stripe runs--so he's got an over fold. See the stripe almost at his waist? Once again, he's using the extra fabric to pad his armor.

Note that both methods allow the wearer to "kirtle up" the folds at the waist to get the all-important look of long folds over the thighs.

Now let's look at another arming scene.

[Image: 4169408719_520c20d6d2_o.jpg]

This hoplite is also wearing a chiton--his is definitely a chitoniskos. It appears that his "thigh pleats" are pleated up into a cord, because the pinning, sewing, or buttoning of his "sleeves" stops before the pleats. Also note that the whole garment is just to his thighs--on me, that's about 36 inches.

[Image: 4170213936_d598a19c44_o.jpg]


Note on this version, the hoplite's chitoniskos is both short and attached to create the "thigh folds"--the attachment area is visible. So this is the more likely way of creating those folds--not pleated into a cord but pleated into a pin. Also note the very iinteresting detail that only the FRONT has these pleats--something I missed the first 30 times I' pleated a chitoniskos.
Qui plus fait, miex vault.
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#21
Good post. Surely on the last painting these folds are pleated into an atachment point, pin, toggle, button, stiches or whatever. I'm sorry, I just don't believe in the use of lots of pins. Why don't we find them? Not enough "cold hard" evidence for me :lol: I suppose if you told me the pins were made of cows horn and left no evidence I'd believe you :roll:
John Conyard

York

A member of Comitatus Late Roman
Reconstruction Group

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.comitatus.net">http://www.comitatus.net
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.historicalinterpretations.net">http://www.historicalinterpretations.net
<a class="postlink" href="http://lateantiquearchaeology.wordpress.com">http://lateantiquearchaeology.wordpress.com
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#22
Pins are made of bronze wire and are endlessly recyclable. Sorry, John--they work, and what's more, when I started looking at dig results--like Sardis--I found just how many pins there were in some digs. And how many were lost to surface hunters? Metal detectors? The market in Istanbul? There's zillions out there. The ROM has so many they only display about 1/10th,a nd they still have the biggest display I've seen.

But sure. I'm not interested in arguing attachment points. Sewing, buttons, pins, what have you--I think all were used. But you can pleat into pins--in fact, that's what they're for, really--and the pleating actually protects the fabric, if you pleat at the attachment point. it allows soft, open weave wool to stand up to hard usage, which a button will not do--unless supported by pleats, of course.. Smile
Qui plus fait, miex vault.
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#23
BYW, John on a 60x90 sheet, I can be fashionably dressed in 3 pins, each about 1 inch long.
Qui plus fait, miex vault.
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#24
the last pic is Trojan style, they are Priamos, Hector and Hecuba, maybe in Athens there where another style Tongue P
Non auro sed ferro recuperanda est patria
Nulla alia gens tanta mole cladis obruta esset
[Image: vasolib30240105up4.jpg]

Francesco Saverio Quatrano
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#25
Excellent post. I get a similar effect as in the bottom painting by placing more than one "button hole" on the front of the garment on the same button on the rear of the cloth. Does that make sense? But certainly pins would work equally well if not better. What sort of pins are you using? I've made medieval style pins by wrapping wire around a shank and soldering it into place. But bone pins are vey easy to make.What do the finds look like?

As an aside some wire fibulas I've seen look far too weak to hold a heavy cloak.
John Conyard

York

A member of Comitatus Late Roman
Reconstruction Group

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.comitatus.net">http://www.comitatus.net
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.historicalinterpretations.net">http://www.historicalinterpretations.net
<a class="postlink" href="http://lateantiquearchaeology.wordpress.com">http://lateantiquearchaeology.wordpress.com
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#26
In this post i'll demonstrate how a chlamys has the exact dimentions to make an exomis. Not a chiton,because it would be a bit too narrow,but for an exomis it is ok. Forgive the disk brooch. It is suitable for the chlamys,but not for the exomis. Some chlamythes don't have disk brooches,they are pinned in a way that the pin is covered and invisible,just like some chitons and peplos. However,note that for the transformation,i didn't even need to change the placement of the brooch. I just passed my left arm through the neck hole and belted the chiton arranging the free corner of the chlamys under the belt to my right. The exomis often is shown letting the right thigh free to move,as the fabric isn't sewn there,so this happens also with my chlamys/exomis. A bad point is that chlamydes always have weights in each corner,but i have never seen weights hunging from an exomis. The upper weights are useful as you pass them under then belt and they keep the fabric in place. And they are invisible. The bottom ones are also useful as they keep the opening down and not easy to uncover secret parts! But they are visible,something that i haven't ever seen in art.
So here is the exomis:
[Image: 4174966913_9390f79044_b.jpg][Image: 4175728710_c29bacf807_b.jpg]
that in reality is a chlamys like this:
[Image: 4174968099_34d00ed5a1_b.jpg]
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4039/417 ... 950e_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2501/417 ... bb90_b.jpg


John,the two button holes make sense indeed. This is how i achieved curves in a belted chiton, but pulling the fabric from a point under the belt and belting it so it produces the pleats and curved to the botom. However,i didn't find it satisfactory,because the fabric doesn't sit well under the belt in the space between each pleating. So i decided that just pulling the fabric in specific places above the belt was working better.
Khairete
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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#27
Nice!
Qui plus fait, miex vault.
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#28
Nice helmet, too!
Qui plus fait, miex vault.
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#29
Hey folks,

I've just picked up some fabric that I'll be using to make my first chiton over the holidays. The idea is to represent a Spartan hoplite during the Peloponnesian War era. I'd like to use the pin method suggested, but don't know exactly what fashion these pins should be? I assume they wouldn't be very small like typical sewing needles, and of course it would be ideal to get bronze ones. Anyone have any suggestions about where I can find some suitable pieces? Thanks!

-Gregory
Gregory J. Liebau
The Bronze Age Center
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#30
Take some wire and make then yourself!
http://sev2maryann.severnschool.com/stu ... typins.jpg

http://www.hippeis.com/forum/index.php?topic=158.0
Fun project!
Khaire
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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