Ancient Greek Male Costume

e Greek civilization counted as one of the oldesta Greek warrior’s attire. However, ‘Greek
civilizations, it is no surprise that ancient Greek malehelmets’ is not an easy accessory to be
costume has always been intriguing both for thedescribed. Unlike the costumes, traditionally, there is no
researchers as well as those who are fascinated byspecific helmet to signify the Greek culture. These
everything Greek’. Though the generally wornhelmets were of different kinds, namely —
costume by most Greek men was a comfortable,trojan, Spartan and Corinthian. Out of these, one of the
tunic-like garment, it was mostly given a shape with amost admired helmets by collectors is the ‘Trojan
kind of belt. This kind of an ancient Greek malewar’ helmets.
costume was called a chiton. A similar type of thisThough the helmets of these ancient Greek men were
dress was worn by women too, though with anof different designs, there was an underlying similarity
additional covering.too. The chief difference, however, which
To beat the cold, older men wore draped a blanket likedifferentiated one helmet from the others was - the
costume, either by itself or over their chitons. Travelerscolor of the helmet and the plume. Most of the Trojan
had an added variation to the regular costume wornhelmets of Greeks were in colors like - silver, black,
by ancient Greek males — the Chalmys, whichand bronze. Some of them also had a war paint
was essentially a small rectangular piece of clothcamouflage color. Orange, red, and black were the
placed over one of their shoulders.popular colors of the plumes.
In Ancient Greece, lead male characters in the GreekIf you want to know the minutest detail of the most
theater also had to accentuate their overall costumehistorical Trojan helmets, that formed a part of the
to make a statement with their audience. They oftenancient Greek male costume, especially during war, the
had to wear shoes with ‘platform’ heels toblack and bronze were the most liked ones. In fact,
give themselves extra height. In fact, these kinds ofsuch a helmet combined with a black or red plume
shoes were a part of the costume of ancient Greekfinished up the overall look of the costume. Spartan
men, who wanted to avoid the dirt of the streets.helmets were another type of helmets that most
Another reason Greek men preferred platform shoesGreek men liked to go in for.
to be an important part of their costume was thatThe basic design of these helmets, like everything else
young men in particular wanted to attract attention.about the ancient Greek male costume, was their
The knowledge about ancient Greek costumes forevident ‘plainness’. A plain silver-colored
men would not be complete without a mention of theirhelmet, made of iron and steel, was the most loved of
war ‘helmets’, the most recognizable part ofall the designs. This particular one was sans the plume.