Creating a roman costume toga
To begin your toga costume, take 3 to 4 yards of cotton, muslin or poplin drapery material. Hold the length horizontally and wrap the material around your waist 1.5 times. Togas can be pinned or tied. Throw the rest of the fabric over a shoulder. Bring fabric back to your waist. Tie it with a colored sash. Adjust your new roman costume toga to suit your taste.
Distinguishing color ¡°classes¡± in a toga costume
Color played an important part in Roman costumes, including the toga, denoting not only the rank or office of the wearer, but some-times the occasion for which it was worn. Toga colors began to distinguish class and professions: blue for philosophers, black for theologians, green for practitioners of the medical arts. A roman costume for soothsayers was a white toga, unornamented. For a peasant toga wear one sober color. Officer¡¯s togas have two colors. Clan commanders, three colors. Toga costume for the members of the Imperial household wore as many as seven colors.
Greek and Roman Footwear
Flip-flops with a Greek toga costume will make Brutus assassinate you, Cleopatra hand you an asp, and Socrates pass you the hemlock. Don¡¯t go there. You can wear regular leather sandals with Roman togas or Greek chitons. But if you¡¯ve taken the time to learn how to make a toga or chiton, why not be Greek or Roman from laurel-wreathed head to toe? Ancient Greek shoes, or cothurni (impress your friends by saying it), came in a variety of styles: * Simple sandals made of a slip of leather strapped to the foot * Light slipper-like coverings similar to mules * Heavy nail-studded boots With their togas, ancient Romans mainly wore the caliga, a heavy sandal with a hobnailed sole and separate leather top, fastened by thongs. The Roman Emperor Caligula, who started his career as a soldier, was named for these shoes. You can wear these with toga costumes, or you can opt for the style available in costume shops with many straps crisscrossing around the half and ankle, almost to the knee.
Romans in Pants
You might see ancient Roman cavalry extras in ¡°Spartacus¡± wearing trousers with their Roman togas. Most instructions on how to make a toga don¡¯t include trousers. However, ancient Roman soldiers, especially the cavalry, wore pants with their togas. You can pair military toga costumes with linen or wool trousers. Keep in mind that the most part trousers were considered the clothing of barbarians. If you dress as a Roman senatorial candidate, wearing trousers will be a bigger fashion faux pas than passing off your Roman apparel as a Greek toga costume.
When in Rome, Accessorize
If you watch ¡°Gladiator¡± or ¡°Spartacus,¡± you¡¯ve probably noticed that Romans tended to dress elaborately, unless you were a peasant, in which case your Roman togas tended to be all one color with no ornaments. If you were one of the few people who watched ¡°Alexander¡± or ¡°Troy,¡± you also noticed that Brad Pitt and Colin Farrell went all out in the Greek toga costume department, and we don¡¯t just mean the armor. Accessories for your toga costumes go beyond the laurel wreaths people traditionally choose. The art of how to make a toga includes choosing decorations. Study children¡¯s history books, the illustrated kind. Those are usually terrific reference guides, and you can see what ancient Greeks and Romans actually wore for festivals, state occasions and everyday life. The upper classes of Greece and Rome glittered with jewelry, as, too, sometimes did the slave classes and the courtesans. Men proudly wore jewels with their chitons and togas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Store often has ancient jewelry replicas or jewelry inspired by ancient Roman and Greek designs. This is another good place to look for ideas and not be distracted by Brad Pitt, Kirk Douglas or Russell Crowe.
Women¡¯s Costumes ¨C Greek vs. Roman
There is no Greek toga costume for women or men. Think Greek chitons, Roman togas. If your sister-in-law asks you if you know how to make a toga for an Athenian woman, smile and say, ¡°Athenian women wear chitons.¡± What is a chiton? Greek women¡¯s chitons are gowns or tunics. Hot tip: Whether you¡¯re making a toga or a chiton, don¡¯t use a bedsheet. Go to a fabric shop and buy linen or wool for your Greek ¡°togas¡±. Greek women¡¯s chitons, which were traditionally a yard longer than men¡¯s, came in two flavors: Doric and Ionic. The Doric style uses wool folded to form a double covering at the waist and pinned at the shoulder by a brooch. The later Ionic style is simpler, made of linen, and sewn at the shoulders. For both styles, wear a fancy girdle or jeweled fashion belt. If you want to get authentic, make a wool cloak called a himation or throw on one of the whole-body shawls or pashminas. Ancient Greek women never left the house without the himation. The women¡¯s Roman toga costumes should be white wool or comparable fabric. The style is similar to male togas. In contrast, Greek women¡¯s chitons were always longer than male chitons. Also, check your history, since fashion was just as unpredictable in the ancient world as it is now. In later Roman times, only women of ill-repute wore Roman togas. Proper young ladies and matrons, as well as slaves, wore short-sleeved tunics tied at the waist. Married woman covered their tonics with a stola, a long, full dress with a high waist girdle and a colorful border around the neckline. Of course, you could always wear the toga pullas, made all of black wool, and be a Roman widow at a funeral. Black also works for an ancient Greek woman¡¯s costume.
Differences between a male roman and Greek costume
A mans Greek costume is a simple, tubular garment. It consists of 2 rectangles joined at the shoulders and down the sides, leaving slit openings for the head and arms. There is no such thing as a Greek toga. Togas were worn only by Romans. A mans roman costume included wearing a toga over a knee-length tunic that is sleeveless or short-sleeved with a wide shawl, draped over the shoulder and wrapped around the body.
Hats Off to Caesar
Diadems, tiaras, crowns and wreaths work well as costume accessories for Roman togas and any Greek toga costume, especially if you¡¯re dressing as an upper class ancient Greek or Roman. There¡¯s a reason instructions on how to make a toga don¡¯t include suggestions for headgear. Romans didn¡¯t wear hats. Greek and Roman women covered their heads with veils. In Ancient Greece, hats, usually made of felt, skin or leather, and with a strap around the neck, were only for bad weather. After the time of Alexander the Great, women sometimes wore conical straw hats. Unless you¡¯re trying to be an ancient Greek traveler in a storm, when it comes to hats with toga costumes, heed the words of the ancients: ¡°Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your hats.¡±