Summary: Viking Fashions
Key dates:
The use of many old Norse words indicates much about the style of clothes worn. The shirt or tunic and trews still feature but a new word entered the vocabulary; cnaipe which means button. Pointed headgear was now introduced. We now know that Dubliners used luxury trimmings with silk tabbies from Persia.
Geraldus Cambrensis described clothing worn just before the Normans came. A new item was the cochall which was an elbow length, close cowled mantle of small pieces of cloth of different colours or weaves. Under this a shirt of rough cloth, called a fallaing, was worn along with trews. These people may also have worn a ionar or over shirt. Women wore long tunics pouched out over a tight belt. The woman pictured was wearing a fawn coloured outer garment which was embroidered along with dark brown shoes.
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