Snake Tunic :D

Since I’m an obsessive nerd, before making this tunic, I tried to learn if embroidery on roman tunics was actually a thing or not. I couldn’t find much on the subject, but I did find this, which talked about Romans calling embroidery ‘painting with the needle’.

I decided to base what I embroidered on this mosaic of a snake, since I assumed it would give me some idea of how Romans would paint one (since I couldn’t find any surviving paintings of snakes).

I haven’t embroidered much, so I initially had a lot of trouble figuring out how to separate the threads, lol. For anyone else struggling, here’s how to do it.

The tunic itself is just a basic rectangle tunic. One of my first. I was considering creating a new tunic to embroider, but then figured might as well not waste one I already have and spend more money on fabric.

I also wanted to make a petasos, which is a Greek hat that was later also worn by Romans. There seem to be different versions of it, such as a wider brimmed straw version worn by farmers, and a much smaller version associated with Hermes. Obviously, I chose to make a smaller version. I really hadn’t known what I was doing, and figured a millinery hood should be enough to make a larger hat, but it wasn’t, and wasn’t the right shape either, but I made due.

A state of Hermes in a petasos from Copenhagen.

The larger style of petasos, on a kylix (a type of Greek cup).