Clothing Definitions — definitions of garments and clothing terms from Apparel Search
The toga was the distinctive garb of ancient Rome. It consisted of a long sash of cloth, folded in a particular way, worn over a tunic; the sash went over the left shoulder and under the right arm. The toga was the characteristic garment of male Roman citizens, and non-citizens were not allowed to wear one. The corresponding formal garment for women was the stola. In the earliest days of the kingdom and republic the toga was worn even in wartime, but it was impractical for battle and difficult to wear with armour, so it was abandoned as a wartime garment and became associated with peace and with public, civic and legal functions.
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The toga was the distinctive garb of Ancient Rome. It consisted of a long sash of cloth, folded in a particular way, that was worn over a tunic. The sash went over the left shoulder and under the right arm.
The toga was the characteristic garment of male Roman citizens. Non-citizens were not allowed to wear one. The corresponding formal garment for women was the stola.
In the earliest days of the Roman Kingdom and Roman republic, the toga was worn even in wartime. However, the garment was not practical for battle and difficult to wear with armour, so the toga was abandoned as a wartime garment. This caused the toga to be associated with peace; it was the essential garb for Romans who were acting in public, civic, legal, and other official functions. It continued to be so even late in the Roman empire, when the toga had been largely abandoned as ordinary clothing.
There were certain kinds of toga that were associated with various ranks and official functions. These included:
The type of toga worn reflected a citizen's rank in the civil hierarchy. Various laws and customs restricted its use to citizens, who were required to wear it for public festivals and civic duties. The toga was an approximately semi-circular woolen cloth, usually white, worn draped over the left shoulder and around the body: the word "toga" probably derives from tegere, to cover. It was considered formal wear and was generally reserved for citizens. The Romans considered it unique to themselves; thus their poetic description by Virgil and Martial as the gens togata ('toga-wearing race'). There were many kinds of togas, each reserved by custom to particular usage or social class.
The English word "candidate" is derived from the toga candida.
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/toga). 12/24/04 |
The toga's impracticality was its meaning. A large woollen cloth, draped in prescribed folds with no fastenings, restricted movement, needed frequent adjustment, and in its formal forms needed a servant's help to put on. A man in a toga could not hurry, labour or fight, and that was the point: the garment displayed a citizen at his civic business, in the forum, the courts and the senate. The kinds of toga marked the calendar and the career, plain white for the ordinary citizen, bordered and dyed versions for boys, magistrates, mourners and triumphs, so a Roman crowd could read rank and occasion from dress at a distance.
As ordinary dress the toga faded even while the empire lasted, kept alive for official functions by custom and rule. Its image never faded: sculpture, coinage and later European art fixed the toga as the visual shorthand for Rome, law and republican virtue, and modern toga parties borrow the silhouette in bedsheets, accuracy aside. For clothing history the toga is the anchor example of the draped garment, clothing made by arranging cloth on the body rather than cutting and sewing it, the opposite pole from the tailored suit, and the pair, toga and tunic against suit and shirt, still frame how the subject is taught.
Male Roman citizens. Non-citizens were not allowed to wear one, which is what made the toga the characteristic garment of citizenship. The corresponding formal garment for Roman women was the stola, worn over a tunic as the toga was.
The toga was a long cloth folded in a particular way and draped over a tunic, passing over the left shoulder and under the right arm. The arrangement left the right arm free and required care, and often assistance, to drape well, one reason it became ceremonial rather than everyday dress.
The toga began as general dress, worn even in wartime in Rome's earliest days. Because it was impractical for battle and difficult to wear with armour, it was abandoned as a wartime garment, and that abandonment tied it to peace: it remained the essential garb for public, civic and legal functions into the late empire.