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Goldman\'s \'Lets Wrap\'
#1
Dr Goldman, who is one of the Roman clothing experts, has done a video available at the Americal Classics League. Has anyone seen it? review?<br>
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"Let's Wrap-Ars Vestiendi Modo Romano" <p></p><i></i>
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#2
-Ars Vestiendi Modo Romano<br>
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Publisher: American Classical League<br>
Cost: $22.40<br>
Categories: · Video Tapes<br>
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Description: The Art of Dressing Roman Style: A Thousand Years of Roman Costumes. An hour long video tape which uses living models to illustrate the design and drapping of Roman clothing. Based on representations on ancient monuments, the tape demonstrates how the Romans dressed and how you can dress that way too for plays and banquets, either using rectangles of cloth or colored sheets, pinned, belted, and bloused, without any cutting or sewing, which can be returned to the linen closet, or using fancy fabrics turned into permanent outfits. Includes the male and female tunica, the palla, the Etruscan, Republican and Imperial togas, the stola, the peplos, the flammeum, an Isis priestess costume and a soldier’s uniform. By Norma Goldman.<br>
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<span style="color:red;"><strong>[url=http://pub55.ezboard.com/btalkinghistory" target="top]Talking History Forum[/url]</strong></span></p><i></i>
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#3
I've gone ahead and ordered it. I'll post a review. I hope it arrives before our fabrica Sept 6, where I could show it to the new recruits and get more comments. As I may have mentioned, I"ve been corresponding with Dr. Goldman who has a new series of patterns coming out soon. I volunteered us to try them all out. <p></p><i></i>
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#4
While not a professional video, this is a very informative video on a variety of clothing styles. Most of the costumes are the same ones seen in the 1983 "The World of Roman Costume", chapter 13, though some are updated based on reexamination of evidence. Her primary sources are wall paintings and sculpture.<br>
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The video covers a number of Etruscan reconstructions, early republican, through the empire and into Constantine's period.<br>
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Dr. Goldman shows how to do a stola and peplos from one piece of cloth, using pins at the shoulder and using belts to blouse up the rest of the material. This is noted in her chapter but not as easy (for me anyway) to visualize. She also covers gap sleeved tunica and sewn sides.<br>
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She briefly mentions the use of weights in one toga reconstruction, but she does not mention the use of weights in a large imperial style toga.<br>
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She only reconstructs one pair of shoes, a pointed set of Etruscan slippers.<br>
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The one Roman soldier is reconstructed literally from Trajan's column, which leads to an embarrassing looking lorica and very odd looking caligae. One has to wonder if the reliance on sculpture for legionaries means that the sculpture of women's clothing is any more stylized and less realistic?<br>
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Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#5
One word - polyester. Oy!<br>
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But it was pretty informative if not a little dry. She could have also dressed the models with an undertunica instead of modern clothes underneath for some examples.<br>
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I did a concentration in costume history with my theater degree so there's a lot more to studying costume than just recreating the styles. I would have liked to have seen more information on textile composition and period patterns with the different styles. She mentioned them at the beginning but it was hard to know if she was trying to be accurate with the colors and patterns on her models. My guess is not since she herself was wearing an awful gold lame' mu-mu. Just say no!<br>
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For the Romans, since there are only a few fabric scraps from the time period and I don't think any complete garments, we have to rely primarily on artwork for the clothing styles. Statues are particularily helpful because they allow you to really see the drape and hang of a garment from all angles. Fortunately, the Romans were pretty realistic in their artwork.<br>
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That being said, you also have to know a bit of art history, know your artist and know why the piece of work exists. Is it a portrait comissioned by a wealthy patron? Is it mean to be a decoration? Is it a record of an event or a slice of "real life" activities? Is the artist trying to idealise something or someone? Like Rich mentioned, sometimes what is being depicted is an ideal instead of the norm.<br>
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For most time periods, the vast majority of people in artwork are the rich and famous, not the norm of society. So it's always a challenge to figure out what the common person wore for day to day life. Fortunately, from what I've seen, I think for the Greeks and Romans everyone pretty much wore the same styles and just added jewelry and finer fabrics as they got richer. Politicians being the exception of having a well-defined set of guidelines of who could wear what and when.<br>
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The other side of costume history is looking at fabric production and textiles. Researching that will help you understand how clothing draped and hung on a person which helps you interpret what you are looking at in the artwork. Studying weaving techniques will tell you how much cloth could have been produced and what kinds of patterns cloth would have, whether they were woven, painted, embroidered, dyed or a combination.<br>
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Does anyone know if the Romans painted prints onto their fabrics? I've seen some stripes which would have been woven. I'm thinking that the purple or red edging on togas would have been a woven stripe instead of a sewn on trim. Anyone have an references for that?<br>
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So costume history can get pretty complex when you add in all the factors. I've seen plenty of reenactors recreate something out of a picture or even a photo and interpret it as being something that was common for the time. It's much harder to make those assumptions, especially the further you go back in history because you have less and less to work with. Too bad the Romans didn't publish fashion magazines.<br>
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Deb <p></p><i></i>
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Deb
Sulpicia Lepdinia
Legio XX
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#6
Rich,<br>
I haven't had a chance to see Norma's video yet, but we had some good discussions in Buffalo last June. We did talk about weights on a toga, though. While external weights are easy to spot in Greek vase painting of himatioi, and there are verbal comments about Roman toga weights in modern scholarship, the only ones I ever been able to find are on the Augustan togas of the Ara Pacis frieze. Maybe they have broken off, but some of the photos I seen that purport to have them just look like damaged marble to me. There are very few "togati" whose folds have survived undamaged. My imperial toga, modeled on the Titus in the Vatican Museum, doesn't have any. I've found they are unnecessary; mine falls, folds, and hangs just fine without them. I do use them on my pallium, though, curtain weights sewn into the corners of my Greek key border. Both Norman and Judith really liked it too. I'm not sure they were used, or even all that necessary, as the imperial toga enlarged past the Augustan period.<br>
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Wade Heaton<br>
Lucius Cornelius Libo<br>
[email protected] <br>
www.togaman.com <p></p><i></i>
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