Draping the chiton

[Kineas]

John, do you have the "City fo London" museum series on textiles and cloth in the 14th c.? My copy is out on lone so I can't give you the exact citation, but it discusses in depth the use of various selvedges--including cord--woven in.

I don't think there's anything "wrong" with anything you said above. i'm sure that at some point Greeks cut cloth. But IN GENERAL, I think that they wove to size when they could, or wore what they ended up with...

I never answered your question about billowing cloth in arming scenes. My apologies. Here are two looks often seen (and conveniently, they are in one scene!). With due respect to the Beazely Archive, this is a 500BC-450BC red-figure vase.



The central figure has the "flouncy" appearance in the upper p[art of his chiton or chitoniskos that is sometimes taken to be sheepskin. But I can get this same effect with soft. hand woven wool by washing it and leaving more than half free (and "billowy" while I iron and pleat the lower half. If you pull way more above the "waistbelt" than you need, you get this effect--and it wears very comfortably under armor. Even more important, al that excess fabric pads itself--so a soft open weave wool doesn't tear or drag on the inside of one's scale shirt..

Next to the central figure, on the left, is another variation. this gentleman is wearing about the same amount of fabric, but his slaves have pressed all of it and pleated it, so that the excess hangs down from the shoulders in what many people call a "peplos" fold. (And don't get me started on this.) However, you can clearly see the lower edge of the fabric and the way the stripe runs--so he's got an over fold. See the stripe almost at his waist? Once again, he's using the extra fabric to pad his armor.

Note that both methods allow the wearer to "kirtle up" the folds at the waist to get the all-important look of long folds over the thighs.

Now let's look at another arming scene.



This hoplite is also wearing a chiton--his is definitely a chitoniskos. It appears that his "thigh pleats" are pleated up into a cord, because the pinning, sewing, or buttoning of his "sleeves" stops before the pleats. Also note that the whole garment is just to his thighs--on me, that's about 36 inches.




Note on this version, the hoplite's chitoniskos is both short and attached to create the "thigh folds"--the attachment area is visible. So this is the more likely way of creating those folds--not pleated into a cord but pleated into a pin. Also note the very iinteresting detail that only the FRONT has these pleats--something I missed the first 30 times I' pleated a chitoniskos.