Ancient Greek Costume

If you want to know the minutest detail of the most historical Trojan helmets, that formed a part of the ancient Greek male costume, especially during war, the black and bronze were the most liked ones. In fact, such a helmet combined with a black or red plume finished up the overall look of the costume. Spartan helmets were another type of helmets that most Greek men liked to go in for.

The basic design of these helmets, like everything else about the ancient Greek male costume, was their evident ‘plainness’. A plain silver-colored helmet, made of iron and steel, was the most loved of all the designs. This particular one was sans the plume. This was worn by the fighters among the ancient Greek men – the Spartan foot soldiers who were the practical force of the Greeks during times of war!

The Greeks liked wearing gold wreaths as decorative headdresses, ornately adorned with flowers, acorns, foliage or images. With jewelry designs and techniques becoming advanced, the Greeks made a laurel headdress to be worn as a crown of honor. It represented Apollo, the god of divination and intelligence.

From its wide popularity in adorning ancient Greek jewelry to the modern times, the purple richness of amethyst has made it the most loved gemstone for decorating unique jewelry pieces. This purple gemstone has also been very much sought-after by people in authoritative positions. It was believed that amethyst symbolized the spirit of God.

Ancient Greek jewelry commonly consisted of gold beads beautifully shaped like shells, flowers and even beetles. The fascination for jewelry in ancient Greece is quite evident from the excavations of beautiful necklaces and earrings from various sites, especially in the northern part of Greece.

The Greeks were great enthusiasts of jewelry and wore both simple as well as complex pieces. For making their jewelry items exclusive, the Greeks mostly used gemstones, the common ones being – emeralds, garnets, pearls and amethysts. Colored glass stones and enamel stones were also created by the Greek craftsmen.

Greeks were very conscious of the human body and displayed it to the best advantage. Rather than conceal, these Ancient Greek Costumes, artistically showed-off the human form.

These may seem rather vulgar in the present day and rather impractical too but they were in vogue at that time. Some of the outfits are the chiton (unisex), exomis (males), tunic (males), himation (males), Doric (females) and ionic (females).

Though most of the dresses were drapes cloths, it is known that the Greeks definitely knew how to make sleeves. However, since normal straight sleeves were considered less aesthetic, bare arms were preferred.