Fresco from 1st Century Pompeii
Try not to put everyone in all white. Women in 1st century Rome woman could wear a variety of styles and
colors and fabrics, and they preferred light, soft fabrics with a good drape. Romans, if they could, wore their clothing clean and un-wrinkled. How you might dress depended too on what you could afford. Please
check this post for a comparison of expensive and cheaper colors.
WEALTHY WOMEN
A wealthy woman could afford more vibrant, color fast dyes, so feel free to dress wealthy characters in bright colors (just avoid neon). A wealthy woman would want her dresses to be clean and unwrinkled. She could afford cloth of silk or silk blends. Linen was glazed to give a a sheen and make it less wrinkly. While in some ways it's better to avoid synthetic fabrics altoghter for period costumes, since wealthy women could afford cloth with "shine," if you do have synthetic costumes you want to use, reserve them for wealthier characters. She would also wear more jewelry, and fancier braided hairstyles.
MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN
A middle class (not poor, not rich) woman could still wear color, but probably not be able to afford something like purple, or dressing completely in silk. She might have smaller items (like a head covering) that were more expensive, in stead of the whole dress. She might also buy more expensive items used, so brighter colored items might be more worn. She would wear jewelry, but either less or less expensive items. If you are playing a shop keeper, think of the practical requirements of what that person would wear in mind too.
POOR WOMEN
Slaves and poor women would still wear colored clothing, but it might be used, more worn, and they would probably not be able to afford more bright and vibrant clothing (unless slaves were given such by their masters). They might not have jewelry or if they did have something modest. Clothing would look more worn out.
A simple Roman women's outfit
Below you can find info on how to make several common roman women's dresses:
How to Make Roman Costumes for WomenMaking Costumes for Greek and Roman Women (VIDEO)
Detailed Guild to Men's and Women's Clothes in Rome (PDF)
Colors Available to Commoners and the Rich
More Info on Women's Dress (if you're interested)
A Pinterest page Full of Ancient Jewelry (not mine)
Just search the page for "Roman" - there's a lot.
Some examples...
Two Ways to Wear a
Peplos, one with a belt underneath,
one with a belt above.
A woman with a tunica, stola, and palla (wrapped around her).
Detail on women's sleeve...one way they wore them.
This look above can be accomplished by threading a safety pin through gold or other decorative buttons, and then pinning the material together. That is similar to how these were actually attached.
Roman women had decorative broaches for attaching cloth at the shoulders and arms, called
fibulae.
I made a Peplos with a sheet, safety pins, gold buttons, and a thin chord for a belt. (The photo below is obviously edited. Wasn't trying to make it look mistical but I took a selfie with my phone in a bathroom, and needed to remove the background and making it "foggy" is the best I could do.)
ROMAN JEWELRY (This is under construction - photos and more details coming soon).
Roman women, if they could afford it, also wore jewelry. Jewelry was important to women it was considered their own property, not their husbands, and it was something they could buy, sell, give or bequeath as they wished.
Below are pictures of 1st Century jewelry from
The Met Collection (public domain).
2nd Century Roman portrait with Jewelry from 1st-3rd Centry
Roman women wore choker style necklaces, sometimes a single one or sometimes stacked. They had pieced ears and wore several styles of earrings (but only one on each ear...they did not do multiple piercings). They also wore bracelets and ring--sometimes they would wear multiple bracelets and rings together.
Here are some more examples of Roman woman's jewelry from the Met Collection....it wasn't that different than jewelry we have today.
Cameos, like those shown below, were popular in the
1st Century. They were used to decorate broaches, earrings, and rings.
Bracelets could be beaded, or bangles, or cuffs. One popular style in the first century was the
snake style bracelet, something that was borrowed from the ancient Greeks. You may have seen this style of bracelet as part of a Cleopatra costume--that's because Cleopatra was Greek. The greeks brought this style to the Egyptians, not the reverse.
Other sources are linked under photo or in text.
