The three different styles of Ancient Egyptians that we observed were women’s fashion, men’s fashion, and the pharaoh’s fashion. By observing our photos, you can easily distinguish the difference between all three styles. Each style contributes greatly to Ancient Egyptian culture and its legacy.
The first style we studied was women’s fashion. As you can see in the photo, a woman’s general wardrobe was much more conservative than a man’s. The ancient Egyptian woman in our photo is wearing a colored sheath dress. This was the most common clothing item for women at the time, but it was usually just white linen. It is in the shape of a tube and extends to the ankles. Upperclass women would wear saris or shawls. Many women, such as the one in the photo, used cosmetics such as black kohl around the eyes. Additionally, women used red ocher for their lips and cheeks. Wigs were extremely popular for both women and men because most people had lice due to unmanageable hygiene. This woman is wearing a black wig, just like all the Egyptian would because black was the only color, but could be style in various ways. For parties or events women sometimes wore scented cones on top of their heads to release a pleasant aroma.
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| Egyptian Woman |
Men’s fashion in ancient Egypt seems to be completely opposite from men’s fashion currently. All of them wore a wrap round skirt that ties at the waist with a belt, just like the man in our photo. Occasionally the material wraps around the legs too. The skirt picture was made out of white linen. Upperclass men wore crème colored linen skirts, which was the most expensive choice. Unlike the women in ancient Egypt, the men wore lots of jewelry including rings, bracelets, earrings, and anything made out of gold or precious stones. Mostly men and women went barefoot, just like the man shown, but sometime they wore sandals made of woven papyrus or leather for the wealthy. For special event, men would wear colorful headdresses.
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| Egyptian Man |
Lastly, we researched the fashion of ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, the most prestigious style of them all. As you can see in the photo, the Pharaoh wears different clothing than the common people in order to display his power and association with the gods. The royal headdress he is wearing is called the Nemes and it is worn over his wig, and made of linen cloth. Additionally, many of the pharaohs, such as the one we chose, wore false beards. Another royal garment that most pharaohs wore was a royal apron called the Shendyt, which wrapped around a king’s body counter clockwise with accordian pleating.
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| Egyptian Pharaoh |
After all of our research, it is obvious that ancient Egyptians strongly focused on differentiating Pharaohs from the common people. This is apparent in the way they dress because everything the Pharaohs wore was much more colorful, extravagant, and flashy than anything the common people wore. It is also interesting to see how much men and women’s apparel has reversed through the ages. In Ancient Egypt men wore short skirts, where women wore long, and men wore a lot of jewelry. The fashion of the ancient Egyptians is very fascinating, and we can see how it played a role in shaping so many different styles in the future.
Group: Heather Rubin, Mackenna Scripps, Paige Corwin, Meghan Garlich
