History Of Clothing

The clothingindustry is the most leadingbusinessaround the globetoday. The use of cloth in current times is ever increasing. At present, we use fabric for all the things, ranging from bed sheets to grand piano covers. Yet, before we began dressing our instruments with a grand piano cover, it was our body itself which was concealed and draped with fabric.

It is assumed that the earliest of humans used to cover themselves with plants and leather. Even in those times, fabric greatly showed a social standing, as the bravest and most powerfulmen wore the skin of the most furious beasts. Archaeologicalartifacts prove that humans used cloths and wearable stuff as early as 170,000 years ago. The clothings at that time were wrapped and tied around the body instead of stitched in an appropriate manner. However, the oldest sewing needles known are of around 40,000 years ago. This suggests that people started to sew their clothes by that time, and this fact also takes to an assumption that some sort of fiber was already known.

The date of the oldest fiber use and discovery is disputedright now, but archaeologists have found a thread of dyed flax fabric in a cave in Georgia. This thread of dyed fiber is as old as 36,000BP. A 25,000 years old statue of Aphrodite is the oldestfigurine of anyone depicted with drapes.Clothing comprises all the accessoriessuch as hat and belts.Well made sewing needles and weaving sticks belonging to the same erawere also found in Eastern and Western Europe.

It is assumed that the oldest fabric to be worn was felt, but it was not as smooth as today’s felt. The woven materialthough, is Flax. It was cultivated in the Near East around 8000 BC. The usage of cotton as a cloth was common in the Indus Valley civilization in around 4000BC. Around the same period, linen was also made in ancient Egypt. a number of weaving methods and tools were invented in Egypt during these times. Usage of linen was so much in Egypt that ancient Egyptians even used it in preservation of their corpses. All of these facts are very prominent from the paintings and murals of those times.

The Chinese are known to have created the silk fiber in 3000BC. Bits of silk are found from different historic places in China. Because of the invention of Silk in China and the cultivation of cotton on the Indus River, the trade of textile and fabric was very common on the Silk Road. This eventually made clothing sewed out of weaved fabric an increasing need around the world.

During the classical era, the most stylishkind of clothes in the west was tunics and togas worn by Greeks and Romans. Yet, it was in the medieval times that fashion established as an essential element of society and class. People began to wear unique clothswith respect to their social ranks and standing. The finest fashion was for the lords and socialites, while lower class used to wear plain clothes.

Then there was the Middle Ages when fashion was something that everyone was following, and the things are still the same. Attire is not only an obligation now, but a lot more than that. It well defines a person’s overall persona and it is pretty much enough to change that too.