Pagan Fashion: Cloak and nothing but cloak: A Brief History

By Kae Lea Day

In the Oxford Dictionary of English:

Cloak n 1 a sleeveless outdoor over garment that hangs loosely from the shoulders.

–          Sometime serving to hide or disguise something: preparations had taken place under a cloak of secrecy .

2 (cloaks) British a cloakroom.

v. [with obj.]  Dress in a cloak: they sat cloaked and hooded.

–hide, cover, or disguise (something): she cloaked her embarrassment by rushing into speech.

<ORIGIN> middle English: from old French cloke, dialect variant of cloche’ bell, cloak’ (from its bell shape), from medieval latin clocca’ bell. Compare with clock1.

The Cloak has been in our history and imagination for well over 2000 years. A simple covering to an elaborate mantle, the cloak has seen it all.

I’m sure we as humans were thinking of warmth and easy to carry when we thought up the cloak. Throughout history it has seen many changes. From animal skin to silk, the cloak can be made out of almost anything and it has.

One ancient version is the Brat.

The Brat, Ireland 5th-10th Centuries CE

The brat (pronounced /braht/) was a rectangular woolen cloak worn over the shoulders like a shawl and or fastened with a brooch on the chest or the right shoulder. The brat seems most commonly to have been rectangular, and rather voluminous, so that it could be folded several times around the wearer, with longer length indicating greater status. They say that the Brat had a hood or was pinned to make a hood. I believe it was warm by both men and women of all status. Made of wool and dyed to accommodate the wearer, the Brat could be multi-colored with fringe or border around it.

Another covering that was ancient was the himation worn by Greeks. This too was a simple rectangle worn around a body for warmth and cover, worn by both men and women. The nice thing about this was there was little or no sewing involved with a himation. Made of a lighter fabric the Himation was worn over the left shoulder and under the right arm.

The last one I want to mention is the Sari. The Sari was and still is used in India. The first descriptions of Saris are around 100 B.C.E. The Hindi believe that any cloth pierced by needles was impure, another reason for the Sari to be a long, single piece of cloth.  The sari is only worn by women.

This is a brief history of cloaks. Without the ancient peoples wearing them we would not have our cloaks.  If you’re thinking of making a cloak, think about making something closer to one of these as a way to experience that ancient time.