Linen Dress

Description of the Product

As a plain dress this is a very versatile piece of clothing that suits many outfits, styles and time periods. This dress has it's roots in Roman uni-sex long tunics and basically has the same design as Roman ankle or foot-length, long-sleeved long tunics worn by both men and women. This dress can be worn loosely or belted. This linen dress is soft against skin so it can be used as under dress with for example woolen over dresses or as the outer garment. This basic long dress stayed pretty much the same though the ages while other clothing layers, over dresses and accessories changed. This simple linen dress can be used in all Viking, Early medieval, high medieval and late medieval wardrobes and was suitable clothing for rural parts of Europe until very recently in modern times. Poorer rural areas used old, true and tested clothing styles long after modern cities had developed and switched to newer style clothing.

Linen textiles are one of the oldest fabrics mankind has used, maybe the oldest. Linen is textile made from flax plant. Wild flax was made into textiles already 36 000 years ago in Europe and the plant was domesticated and extensively grown and used in ancient Mesopotamia.  Linen was the most widely used fabric also in ancient Egypt. The use and cultivation of flax moved northward in Europe and linen clothing was available throughout Europe all the way to the cold north by late Bronze Age. Flax was grown locally in Scandinavia during Viking Age and linen was important commercial good. During the Middle Ages German was the main hub growing flax and fabricating linen in almost industrial scale.

The linen this dress is made is soft to the touch but still durable and breaths very well. Linen is naturally absorbent and dries faster than cotton. Baltic linen is grown in the Baltic and Nordic countries where long cold winters around the Baltic Sea make this plant and its fibers strong and durable. Properties that our ancestors appreciated.

• Made of 100% Baltic linen
• This dress is based on original patterns, and has a typically narrow and modest neck
• This dress has been left unadorned so as to keep it historically accurate for a long time period
• Historically accurate from late Roman times till almost modern times
• Available sizes XS-XXL
• Made by Karhunhammas - Beartooth