West Asian Clothing

Because of the many different cultures which came into contact with each other in West Asia, clothing became very important as a way to tell to which group of people a stranger belonged. So there was no one West Asian way to dress. Instead, there were many many different ways, and all of the differences were very important to people, because they helped people know who you were.

In general, it is quite hot in West Asia, and so most of the outfits are loose-fitting and have a lot of cloth in them, to cover your skin so you won't get a sunburn in the hot sun. Both men and women usually wore basically a long piece of cloth wound around them in different ways (but how you wound the cloth showed what group you belonged to, and so did the color and pattern of the cloth, and whether it was wool or linen). Often there was another long piece of cloth which you wore over your head, which we call a veil for women and a turban for men.

When men were working hard outside, or when they were fighting a war, they often went naked or just wound a smaller piece of cloth around their stomach and legs to make something like a pair of shorts. Women always covered themselves from their neck to their knees at least, even when they were working in the fields.

To find out more about West Asian clothing, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:

Ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian & Persian Costume, by Mary G. Houston (reprinted from 1954 edition). For professional costumers, with patterns.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (1995). Not for kids, but an interested high schooler could read it. Fascinating ideas about the way people made cloth in ancient times, and why it was that way.

Islamic clothing
Main West Asian page
Main Clothing page