This site covers dress in six eras and six world regions, which is close to the way world history courses are organized. The tables below map the articles to the units of AP World History: Modern and to the earlier periods that ancient and medieval courses cover. The unit dates are the College Board's; the mapping to this site's eras is approximate, because the site's eras do not break at exactly 1200, 1450, 1750, and 1900.
Every article has the same parts: a survey of the period, sections on men's and women's dress and on elite and ordinary wearers, a section on how historians know what people wore, a "Common Myths" section, Quick Answers, and a numbered Sources list. Each image is from a museum or archive open-access collection and names the object, its date, and its holding institution.
AP World History: Modern
| Unit | Period | Articles on this site |
|---|---|---|
| Unit 1, The Global Tapestry, and Unit 2, Networks of Exchange | c. 1200–c. 1450 | The six medieval surveys: Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas. Deep dives: Chola dynasty clothing, Mali Empire clothing, Aztec clothing, Inca clothing, kimono history (the kosode). Trade in cloth runs through all of them: silk, cotton, and the trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean routes. |
| Unit 3, Land-Based Empires, and Unit 4, Transoceanic Interconnections | c. 1450–c. 1750 | The six early modern surveys: Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas. Deep dives: Mughal clothing, Ottoman clothing, and the colonial sections of Aztec clothing and Inca clothing. Robes of honor, sumptuary law, and the Indian cotton trade are the recurring themes. |
| Unit 5, Revolutions, and Unit 6, Consequences of Industrialization | c. 1750–c. 1900 | The six 19th-century surveys: Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas. Deep dives: American frontier clothing, the history of the sari (colonial trade and Swadeshi), the fez and stambouline in Ottoman clothing. Mechanized spinning and weaving, the sewing machine, synthetic dyes, and dress reform appear across the regions. |
| Unit 7, Global Conflict; Unit 8, Cold War and Decolonization; Unit 9, Globalization | c. 1900–present | The six modern surveys: Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas. Deep dives: qipao history, kimono history. National dress after independence, the Mao suit, the abacost, khadi, and global fast fashion are the threads. |
Ancient and medieval world history
Courses that start before 1200 can use the earlier eras.
| Period | Articles on this site |
|---|---|
| Prehistory and the first clothing | When were clothes invented?, Ice Age clothing, and the six prehistoric surveys, starting with Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East for the earliest evidence. |
| River valley and classical civilizations | The six ancient surveys: Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia), Europe (Greece and Rome), South Asia (Vedic India to the Guptas), East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas. Deep dives: ancient Egyptian clothing, the Roman toga. |
| Post-classical world, 500–1200 | The medieval surveys above, plus Byzantine clothing, early Islamic Arab clothing, Islamic Golden Age clothing, Tang dynasty clothing, Heian period clothing, and Viking clothing. |
The full timeline has 83 dated milestones with era and region labels, and the glossary defines the garment terms.
Ways to use the articles
- Compare two regions in one era. Every era has six regional articles with the same structure, so students can put, for example, medieval Europe and the medieval Middle East side by side and ask why sumptuary laws appear in both.
- Trace one region across eras. The regions index lists each region's six articles in order.
- Work from the evidence. Each article has a section on how historians know what people wore: grave finds, sculpture, tomb figurines, paintings, tax records, travelers' accounts. The images are the same kinds of objects, each linked to the museum record that holds it.
- Test a myth. The myths index collects common misconceptions, each corrected with sources. A class can be asked where the myth came from and what evidence overturns it.
- Check a source. Every specific claim carries a numbered citation to the Sources list at the end of the article. Students can follow the number, open the source, and judge whether it supports the sentence. The corrections log shows how the site itself does this.
Printing and copying
Every article prints as a clean handout. Use your browser's print command: the navigation and related-article lists are removed, the images are kept, and the Sources list prints with its web addresses.
The text on this site may be copied for classroom use with a credit to The History of Clothing and the page address. Images belong to the institutions and photographers named in their captions, under the licenses named there, so a slide that uses one should carry that credit line.
To cite a page: The History of Clothing, "[page title]", clothinghistory.com, accessed [date]. The last-updated date is shown under each article's title.