Customer Reviews

The World of Roman Costume (Wisconsin Studies in Classics)

5 star:		(3)
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The World of Roman Costume outlines the components of Romandress and explains how knowledge of clothing can enhance ourunderstanding of Roman culture and civilization. The volume consists of thirteen chapters written by different authors (all in English); each covers a different ritual or social aspect of Roman dress using visual, archaeological, and literary evidence. In the Introduction, the authors give a short survey of the scholarly investigations into ancient dress. Chapters follow on different aspects and descriptions of Roman clothing: the changes in cut and draping of the toga throughout Roman antiquity, symbolism in the costume of the Roman woman, the clothing of the Roman bride, the colors and textiles of Roman costume, jewellry as a symbol of status in the Roman empire, even footwear. The book also contains evidence for costume using purely literary sources, such as the speeches of Cicero and Virgil's Aeneid. There are also chapters here which explore the geographical dimensions of Roman costume: the integration of Roman styles of clothing in Syro- Mesopotamia and Roman Palestine, for example, and the depiction of barbarians on Roman curiasses. The last chapter ("Reconstructing Roman Clothing") is the most interesting, as it contains patterns and instructions for making most of the clothing discussed in the book. The World of Roman Costume is a very valuable treatment of a subject too little examined, a thoroughly enjoyable book, and an intriguing study for general readers as well as scholars of antiquity.

I love this book. I recomment you buy it. Read it. Use it. You'll love it. You're asking yourself: WHY?

Answer: The section on reconstructing Roman clothing is extremely helpful. The photos of historical evidence in statues, museum finds, ect., are excellent.

The writing style is a little more scholarly than the other book by AT Croom, however, don't let that dissuade you.

Highly recommended by Legio XX--a Roman reenactment group. I bought it for use in the SCA.

This is the most thorough book on ancient Roman costume. It shows off pictures of statues, mosaics, paintings, jewelry, and more, and examines all aspects of costume. The text is incredibly detailed, discussing class, gender, social influences, hierarchies, and the power of culture on dress. There is also discussion on the difference between Greek and Roman costume during the time.

I was not impressed with this book. For an expensive book, the volume itself is surprisingly poorly bound (I got it in oversized paperback). Large sections of pages fell out of the binding during my first reading of the book. Also, the chapters are written by different contributors so the text is often repetative and inconsistent.
I purchased the book to recreate authentic Roman costumes for a museum exhibition and most of the docents are women. The section on womens' clothing focused on symbolism more than the actual garments and it is a scant 8 pages long (compared to the 33 pages devoted to the toga). There is a section on colors and textiles however it is without illustration. The illustrations are all black and white regardless.
In general, there are many helpful illustrations that invite the readers to draw their own conclusions. The patterns, glossary and index are extremely helpful. I would have liked to see a summary of the varieties of Roman clothing and who wore them during which years of Roman history.
I would not reccomend this as a textbook or as a resource for reenactors.

Thank you for this book. I found it very useful when trying to create Roman clothing. It's a great book, thank you! Lots of photos with information on what is in the photo.