Roman Clothing and Fashion by Croom Alexandra

Author:Croom, Alexandra [Croom, Alexandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2012-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

30 Tombstone of couple, showing woman wearing gap-sleeved tunic. © Soprintendenza Archeologica di Ostia.

31 The gap-sleeved tunic, showing details of the fastenings as shown on portrait busts. 1 Faustina the Younger, AD 162-70; 2 Unknown woman, late second century. Both in the British Museum.

An indication of the colour of these fastenings could help in their interpretation; however, although this form of tunic appears on many examples of portrait sculpture, there are very few depictions of it from coloured wall paintings, and those that do exist are not very helpful. The clearest examples show the fastenings in a pale colour, whatever the colour of the tunic, with darker shadows (colour plate 13). This could either represent light reflecting off metal, or could just be a way to make the fastenings more visible. It seems strange that, if these fastenings were indeed made of gold or copper alloy, they are not more often decorated and treated as an opportunity for display along with other forms of jewellery, and even more strange that they are not shown on statues as smooth circular discs or some other regular shape rather than the uneven shapes depicted. A possible interpretation is that they are not metal, but cloth. The two edges of the cloth may have been gathered together into a point (therefore causing the folds seen radiating from each fastening), which was then sewn round and through, about a centimetre or so below the tip to fix it in place. The resulting tuft could be left upstanding, or could be flattened, but either way it usually had folds within it, as modern experimentation has shown (colour plates 11-2). The sagging folds created by this form of fastening also help to produce the gap between the fastenings, which does not happen naturally when the two edges are simply held together without any form of gathering.

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