L. begins by saying that her topic is one that ‘seems very familiar’ (p. 1). She goes on to defamiliarise her topic beautifully via a nuanced exploration of how the body carried meaning for the ancient Greeks – at all times, in all contexts and whether dressed or undressed.
As L. sets out, there has long been a popular interest in ancient Greek dress, coupled with scholarship stretching back over the centuries. Until recently, scholarship was largely typologically-focused, although recent decades have seen a move away from a narrow focus on how to identify specific categories of dress towards a study informed by research in various areas including art, literature, religion and – notably – gender and sexuality. L. sets out to synthesise this work – and the result is the first single-authored book on Greek dress in English. She makes clear that this has been an ambitious undertaking. The body and dress are always an issue – in every context, for every ancient Greek person and community, from when a new-born baby is bathed and so gets its first bodily modification, through the different age and status categories.
The first chapter, ‘Ancient Greek Dress and Modern Dress Theory’, provides a theoretically-informed overview for the book, by giving a spirited answer to the question ‘Why (Not) Dress?’ posed in one of the subheadings (p. 18). L. states that the book's ‘organizing principle’ is ‘borrowed from contemporary dress theory’ (p. 1), and she surveys the approaches that bear on her own, including J. Butler on gender performativity, P. Bourdieu on habitas and M. Merleau-Ponty on dress as phenomenology. I wonder whether L. is being a little modest in describing her approach as one ‘borrowed’ from elsewhere, especially when, as she also states, she is ‘allow[ing] ancient Greek dress to become part of the larger scholarly discourse within dress studies’ (p. 1). Classicists often present what they do as drawing from advances made elsewhere. This book stands as an example of where Classics can be in dialogue with other disciplines – as part of non-verbal communication studies for instance – rather than only ever receiving the work of others.
The remaining chapters cover a range of ancient evidence, organised into clearly laid-out sections. Chapter 2 looks at various categories of bodies as understood by the Greeks. Chapter 3 discusses the evidence for various types of bodily modification – both temporary (e.g. diet and bathing) and permanent (e.g. piercing and scarring). Chapter 4 combines a study of typology with social practice by exploring the evidence for, and meanings communicated by, such garments as the peplos, the chiton and the himation. The next chapter turns to how such garments could be accessorised by objects such as belts, buttons and jewellery. Here, too, L. explores what functions these served and what social meanings they communicated. Having looked in detail at specific kinds of garments and accessories, Chapter 6 considers what it meant for the body to wear nothing. Building on L. Bonfante's argument that the naked body is a costume, L. contends that dress is an issue whether or not the body is actually dressed. The final chapter pulls the study together by exploring what dress signified in a range of social contexts including warfare, religion and death.
L. stresses that her study is not setting out to be a definitive one – and she expresses a hope that it will be a ‘catalyst for future research’ (p. 232 – the book's closing words). There is certainly scope for work in some of the areas that she does not explore in-depth, one being Homeric dress. L. sets her starting date as c. 650 – so excluding Homer, but allowing Hesiod, although Homer does keep creeping in, as in the section on the zone (p. 135, with p. 286 n. 51), where L. draws attention to the role of adornment in Homeric femininity. As well as setting a chronological parameter that excludes a key body of evidence, she restricts herself to ‘real’ people (p. 5) rather than mythological evidence, although mythological examples regularly come into the study, and, as L. says, identifying where a vase painting is depicting a generic or a mythological scene is a tricky undertaking. L.’s exploration of dress as the establishment and regulation of identity would translate into the study of myth – by considering how mythological dress articulates and challenges cultural norms. There is scope too for further research framed by dress/gender/social theory and – now – transgender studies, which looks set to provide an additional way to do what L. does here, namely to shake up the study of the ancient body.
This is a book on ancient Greek dress – it is also more than this. It uses dress as a vehicle for the exploration of Greek status, ethnicity, gender and identity. L. shows how classical studies can benefit from a deeper understanding of dress – and how, in turn, classicists can inform dress studies.
