SNAPPY SOLDIER TUNIC PLEAT

[tlclark]

Lucius

Great pictures! thanks.

So you would say that the extra material is a net benefit then, and that there are no serious problems with binding and discomfort?

Crispus.

Thanks for your comments. I don't think it's an all-or-nothing proposition.

If pleats are produced with a running stitch I don't think it would affect the over-all-length of the tunic, only the way it drapes. The sash and the belt could account for the length of the tunic, but the pleats might be just naturally there.

The reason I believe this is the vast amount of Roman statuary where we have figures in non-military contexts that have pleats, but no sashes, cingulae or other features. The u-shaped draping is pretty universal to all Roman clothing through the 1st-2nd C. Male, female, miles, cives, what have you.

All of the clothing exhibits extensive pleating, not just military clothing.

There's two explanations. Either there were elaborate grooming and dressing customs to get the pleats, that's not impossible, lord knows we have lots of cultural obsessions we can't defend on any grounds of impracticality. My thought is that it just must have something to do with the way the clothes are made.

We see two major patterns of pleats. Long vertical pleats, and u-shaped pleats. The long vertical pleats could easily be made with gathers in the shoulder seams, the u-patterns by gathers in the side seams.

It seems simple and it appears to be what I am seeing in the statuary.

One more point. a running stitch would be concealed and you wouldn't see any evidence of the stitching if it were done on the inside. We do see stitching on some of these statues but not on the gathered sections, which is what we would expect to see if they were using a running stitch.

Thanks for the comments.

Travis