Twelve thousand shells were crushed to produce a single gram of purple dye, and somewhere in that grim arithmetic, a Roman emperor’s tunic became worth more than the lives of the men who harvested it. But the empire’s most iconic garment—the toga—wasn’t everyday wear. It was a status symbol, reserved for special occasions and wealthy men. Romans called themselves “togati,” or people of the toga, but for most citizens that was a fashion lie.
Togas required an enormous amount of expensive wool, wrapped in a complicated ritual that usually demanded a slave’s skill to get right. The richest even employed toga-wrapping specialists, because a well-fitted toga advertised sophistication, and the toga picta, dyed purple with gold embroidery, was reserved for generals celebrating a triumph. Those who couldn’t afford the fabric or the servant simply wore a tunic. The same purple that dressed emperors came from the glands of the banded dye murex, a Mediterranean sea snail.
The Phoenicians, a name that literally means “purple people,” had perfected the technique long before Rome. They left behind waste dumps of crushed shells forty meters high. A woman’s equivalent to the toga was the stola, a long, sleeveless garment worn only by married women. It was simpler than the toga—Roman women lacked the varied career paths of men—so they advertised their status with jewelry and elaborate hairstyles.
In 195 BC, they marched in protest of the Lex Oppia, laws that restricted their spending on fashion. Unmarried women and the lower classes made do with simple tunics. Silk arrived from China, a land the Romans called Seres, the kingdom of silk. Emperor Marcus Aurelius sent the first envoy to China in 166 CE, and by 380 CE, the soldier-historian Ammianus Marcellinus noted that silk, once confined to the nobility, had spread to all classes, even the lowest.
Roman women had their own form of activewear, similar to the modern bikini: a strophium, or breastband, and a subligaculum. Men wore a loincloth called a perizoma. These weren’t swimsuits—Romans used them for athletics like running, discus throwing, and an early team ball game. Archaeologists have recovered one thong-like subligaculum, now displayed at the Museum of London.
Undergarments, when worn at all, were similar. Most people, though, likely went commando. The movies got the sandals right. But those were indoor shoes.
Outside, Romans wore leather boots that covered the whole foot, available to all classes, though richer Romans wore fancier versions. Soldiers had caligae, open-toed boots hobnailed for traction. Emperor Caligula, whose real name was Gaius, earned his nickname—“little boots”—from the miniature boots made for him as a boy on his father’s campaigns. A cute story, if the emperor hadn’t become synonymous with depraved tyranny.
When Romans needed to wash their clothes, they used urine, which is full of ammonia, a natural solvent that breaks up dirt and grease. Pedestrians would stop at vessels lining the streets, relieve themselves, and go about their day. Laundry workers poured the urine over dirty clothes, climbed in, and stomped. And in cold climates like Britain, Romans wore socks with divided toes under their sandals.
A razor handle carved to resemble a human foot, wearing just such sandals and socks, was found in an underwater fort near the River Tees. Some things never change. Hair was always a marker of status. In ancient Egypt, only royals and elites could wear elaborate hairstyles and wigs—it was illegal for enslaved people and servants to do so.
Men had bob cuts; children wore distinctive half-shaved styles. Spartan boys kept their hair short for athletic training, but once they came of age, they grew it long, and Plutarch noted that in times of danger they took pains to make it glossy and well-combed, believing a fine head of hair made the handsome more comely and the ugly more terrible. Athenian women used gold and leather bands, hairnets woven with gold and silk. In India, Brahmins wore a small tuft of hair at the back of the head called a shika, meant to protect them and keep the brain cool; removing it was considered a sin.
In Imperial Rome, enslaved males shaved their heads to distinguish themselves from free men. Vestal Virgins demonstrated their chastity with elaborate braided styles. By the Augustan period, wealthy Roman women wore tall, curly hairstyles, often with wigs, and kept slaves specifically to fix their hair. They dyed their hair gold or red, and some even sprinkled gold dust into it.
For dark hair, a recipe included charred eggs, leeks, walnut shells, and leeches. Vikings were surprisingly well groomed, bathing weekly and combing their hair daily. Men favored reverse mullets, with shaved necks and fringes across the forehead, while women wore long braids and knots decorated with pins and ribbons. The Maya, a force in Mesoamerica from the third to the tenth century, wore long high ponytails.
Men shaved the sides of their heads and burned the front sections to show off their facial features, decorating their ponytails with feathers. Women wove their long hair into braids or wore headdresses. The samurai top knot, known as a chonmage, was a fundamental part of a warrior’s identity. Cutting it off was a public shame for a samurai who had been defeated or dishonored.
In 19th century Japan, the style became taboo or was outright banned. In Italy before the Renaissance, hair was long and often dirty, with lice common. But in the 15th century, Venetian women wore a style called the fongo, or mushroom, with locks wound in ribbons around the head. In 1480, the Council of Ten banned it as indecent, ordering hair to be drawn back so women could be seen as women, just as God made them.
In Elizabethan England, hair and hats indicated class. Queen Elizabeth was said to have owned more than eighty wigs. Curly, frizzy hair was desirable, and women with thin hair used animal hair or even purchased the hair of children. Syphilis, which spread through Europe in the 1490s, caused patchy hair loss in its early stages.
Since long hair was a crucial status symbol, baldness was almost as shameful as the disease itself. English diarist Samuel Pepys wrote that if his brother lived, he “will not be able to show his head, which will be a very great shame to me. ” Instead of flaunting their piebald scalps, wealthy Europeans turned to wigs. French philosopher Denis Diderot claimed that the length of one’s hair determined social rank, and that the monarch’s head of hair became “the yardstick of social rank.
” King Louis XIV of France started going bald as a teenager and was obsessed with his reputation. He hired forty-eight wigmakers, and his wigs added inches to his height. Wigs, originally made from horse, goat, or human hair, quickly became expensive accessories. In 1673, France created a wigmakers’ guild.
By 1771, there were nearly a thousand wigmakers in the country. Wigs hid bald patches, open sores, rashes, and even lice, which had moved from shaved heads to the wigs themselves. Wig makers de-loused them by tossing the wigs into boiling water. The term “big wig” dates back to the late 1600s, when wig wearers prioritized size above all else.
An everyday wig could cost twenty-five shillings, a week’s pay for a commoner. Elaborate wigs could cost upwards of eight hundred shillings. Aristocrats were unhappy when commoners adopted the fashion—the Marquis de Mirabeau lamented that even a blacksmith’s son now wore a well-powdered wig, and complained, “Everyone has become a monsieur. ” Wealthy people simply adopted even more elaborate styles.
George Washington, remarkably, didn’t wear a wig at all. He styled his own hair to look like a wig, using oil and powder to achieve the distinguished look. The French Revolution ended the powdered wig era, driving fashion toward simpler, more egalitarian styles. In England, a heavy tax on hair powder in 1795 killed the trend by the dawn of the 19th century.
Pants themselves date back three thousand years, found in the tomb of two nomads in western China. They were essential for horseback riding, but the ancient Greeks and Romans saw pants as a sign of barbarism. Blue jeans are only about 150 years old. In the 1870s, miners in Nevada needed tougher trousers, and Jacob Davis brought his denim design to Levi Strauss.
Together they patented the first pants fastened and strengthened by rivets. By 1890, Strauss introduced the first 501 jeans, still sold today. Cargo pants were introduced as part of British Army uniforms in the 1930s, with extra pockets for weapons, ammo, and rations. American soldiers took up the style, and it’s remained a standard part of the US military uniform.
T-shirts trace back to the ancient Roman tunic, but the modern tee came from the union suit, a button-down onesie. In 1904, the Cooper Underwear Company created a standalone version called the bachelor undershirt. By 1913, the US Navy adopted them as standard uniform. The name t-shirt was coined by F.
Scott Fitzgerald in his 1920 book, This Side of Paradise. Men’s suits also evolved. In the 1700s and early 1800s, European men wore colorful, flamboyant clothing influenced by the French court—wigs, powder, perfume, silks—and were known as fops. But George Beau Brummell, an Englishman, popularized a less showy style, wearing full-length trousers and tailored jackets, and favoring regular bathing over wigs and perfume.
His style, which emphasized natural form, became the basis of the modern men’s suit, and his followers were known as dandies. The earliest bras were little more than strips of fabric tied around the chest, worn by Greek and Roman women during sports. For centuries, women wore painfully restrictive whalebone corsets. The modern bra was developed by New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob in 1913—two handkerchiefs joined by a ribbon.
She changed her name to Caresse Crosby and used her earnings to become a famed publisher and patron of the arts. Underpants, the cotton kind with a separate hole for each leg, didn’t exist until the 1600s and were designed for women to avoid flashing people when getting on or thrown from a horse. Men’s leggings, on the other hand, were all the rage in medieval Scotland, but exclusively for men, and were made of leather or chainmail before wool. The necktie first found popularity in Europe in 1636, when King Louis XIV of France enlisted Croatian mercenaries who wore cravats around their necks.
Privates wore common lace or muslin; officers wore silk. When the soldiers visited Paris, their neckwear became an instant trend, an excellent way to show off wealth. Hats go back to the Stone Age. The earliest drawing of a hat was found in an Egyptian tomb dating to around 3200 BC.
Ötzi the Iceman, found frozen in the Alps, was wearing a bearskin cap five thousand years ago. Modern sunglasses are a recent invention, but in 13th century China, judges wore glasses made of smoky quartz to hide their eyes and facial expressions during trials. The Inuit used glasses made of whale bone to shield their eyes from the sun’s reflection off snow. The Hawaiian aloha shirt was designed by a Japanese woman living in Hawaii in the 1920s, who repurposed kimono fabric for menswear.
It became a status symbol for wealthy Americans who could afford island vacations. Elvis’s fondness for the shirts in his 60s films cemented their popularity. High heels were originally menswear, with a practical purpose: helping men’s feet fit securely into stirrups when riding. They became a status symbol, showing the wearer didn’t have to walk long distances or do manual labor.
Women didn’t traditionally wear heels until the early 17th century. Swimsuits didn’t exist in a standardized form until the 19th century, when railroads allowed more people to visit bodies of water. The original suits covered the whole body, and women used “bathing machines”—tiny houses on wheels—to conceal themselves. Men didn’t swim bare-chested until the 1930s, and beach guards used tape measures to ensure women’s suits met decency laws.
The macaroni trend, made famous by the song Yankee Doodle, had nothing to do with pasta. In the 1770s, rich young men who traveled Europe on grand tours brought back fashions from Italy and France—giant wigs, tight-fitting pants, striped stockings, long-tailed coats, lace, silk, and bright colors. They used excessive powder and carried fancy walking sticks. They were an exclusive group, deliberately carefree, who used their elaborate outfits to remind the poor they’d never know such luxury.
The trend wasn’t just fashion; it was a lifestyle, with macaroni dancing masters, parsons, and turf macaronis emerging. The media mocked them mercilessly. Cartoonist Mary Darly made a career ridiculing them, and her London shop became known as the Macaroni Print Shop. The trend faded by the end of the 1770s as values shifted toward hard work over inherited wealth, and it became increasingly associated with femininity and challenged gender norms.
The British wrote Yankee Doodle to mock Americans, whom they saw as simpletons. But American Revolutionary soldiers embraced the insult and turned it into an anthem of patriotism. Teen fashion changed constantly through the 20th century. In the 1990s, it was JNCO jeans, oversized plaid flannels, baby-doll dresses, and spaghetti-strap tank tops.
The 80s were about bold colors, Zubaz pants, shoulder pads, and slogan tees. The 70s brought denim, tie-dye, bell-bottoms, and maxi skirts in earth tones. In the 60s, mods in London wore tight-fitting suits and Chelsea boots, while women embraced the mini skirt. The 50s were wholesome, with poodle skirts and pastel sweaters for girls, and greaser style for bad boys—white T-shirts, blue jeans, and black leather jackets.
The 40s were defined by war: Rosie the Riveter inspired women to raid their brothers’ closets for button-down shirts, and men’s clothing became “pretty darn comfy. ” Teenagers wore pleated high-waisted slacks and double-breasted jackets. In the 30s, during the Great Depression, the invention of feed sack dresses rose from necessity—dresses made from the sacks that held chicken feed. Packaging companies sold feed sacks in desirable floral prints.
Hollywood starlets like Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow wore dresses above the ankle, while men on a budget bought suit combos, packaged like fast-food meals, for $25. The 1920s brought the flapper look—silk drop-waist dresses, fringe headbands, and felt hats. In 1910, a survey found that wealthy high school students at a private girls’ school in NYC spent $556 a year on clothes, the equivalent of about $18,000 today. At the turn of the century, teens and adults dressed largely the same.
Edwardian fashion, with floor-length dresses, cinched waists, and mutton sleeves, was all the rage. Boys wore single-breasted suits with matching vests after graduating from short pants, and bowler caps were the must-have headwear. The Elizabethan ruff, that large stiff collar, was an indicator of wealth and prestige, not comfort. It made eating and manual labor almost impossible, which was the point—it announced you had servants to do such things for you.
Starch, introduced to England in 1564, made ruffs stand tall, and they grew bigger and more elaborate. By 1580, a ruff could extend the width of a gentleman’s shoulders. Queen Elizabeth banned blue ruffs because blue was the color of Scotland’s flag, and she ordered pins by the thousands to hold her ruffs in place. Some ruffs were so fragile they were worn only once.
The devil, according to Puritan Philip Stubbs, “first invented these great ruffs. ” By the 1590s, women began wearing open-front ruffs to show off their décolletage. Ruffs took hours to prepare and required wire supports to keep their shape. By the early 17th century, falling ruffs, pleats attached to the neckline that hung over the shoulders, became the fashion.
And so, from the purple of a sea snail to the powdered wigs of kings, from socks worn with sandals to JNCO jeans, the way we dress has always told a story. It says who we are, what we can afford, and who we want to be. Everything you’re wearing right now was invented by somebody, often for a reason you’d never guess.
History isn’t just in the books—it’s in your closet.
