We know the culture of Constantinople mainly through its own art, especially wall and floor mosaics that lasted through time. We don’t seem to have many images, certainly not as many as from later medieval Europe, but what we have shows a very consistent culture of opulence and religious devotion. The best known mosaic portrait shows the Empress Theodora around the year 530 (she died in 548).
Theodora’s dress is very simple in its cut. She is still wearing something not far off from the Roman robes. During Byzantium’s height, there was one basic improvement on Rome’s “tube clipped at the shoulders” design. The tube around the body had sleeves added to form a T shape, with a neck hole. The T-shaped dress could be covered with a Roman mantle or cinched with a belt. We don’t have any evidence that dress shape evolved beyond these two simple cuts during their time.
But if you look closely at Theodora and her companions, you will see a wealth of detail. Theodora, born into poverty and raised to supreme wealth and power by her beauty and intelligence, is dripping with pearls. She is wearing a collar or necklace covered with other rare jewels. But let’s assume the pearls and gold, and look instead at the fabric details on the three in the picture. Theodora’s dark robe shines; it is probably purple silk. At the bottom, a wide hem of hand embroidery stands out.
The Empress’s companion on the right has three outstanding fabric details. First, her mantle is made of figured silk. At this time, silk was made only in China, and the technique of weaving in such a complex pattern was unknown in Europe. The mantle is generously large; it covers most of her dress. The dress itself seems to be made of dark figured silk with a wide embroidered border like the Empress’s. The man to her left has a very simple white robe, probably the T-shaped kind with a real sleeve. But it, too, has a rich embroidered border on shoulder and skirt.
That’s how Byzantine fashion ran: it was about yards and yards of imported fabric, many square inches of dense embroidery in silk or spun gold, and jewels. Clothing for the wealthy used as much fabric as possible, as suited a society that was both devout and luxuriant. Pious Byzantine women covered their skin with silk, gold and crosses.
The other thing to note in Theodora’s mosaic is how the two women have their hair in some kind of “up do” (as it’s called now) with a hat covering most of it. Their hats are modeled after Eastern turbans to some extent. Although their robes and mantles copy Rome, their hats are characteristic of the Near East.
The Empress was married to Emperor Justinian, who has his own mosaic. The men in it are dressed simply, though as your eyes adjust to the detail, you’ll notice some figured silk on the Emperor and bands of embroidery on other men’s shoulders. His warriors seem to have their own rules of fashion, much less Roman in their gaudy colors.
But look carefully at the Emperor’s shoes, and the other shoes in his retinue. They all look like women’s shoes to us, but putting that too aside, notice the detail in leather cutting. The shoes’ straps are fine and look like they would not last long outside the palace. All have cut leather designs that allow skin or hose to show through. The Emperor’s shoe leather has been dyed red, and the cut leather has perhaps been painted with other colors. Such impractical shoes prove that the wearer rarely sets foot on real sand or grass. He goes from tile to paved courtyard to horseback or litter.
Byzantine fashions were longer-lived than Byzantium’s rulers (who were notoriously insecure of life). Their height of opulence lasted for a little while longer, but by 700, they were losing tax base to invading Arabs, and in the centuries after, the city was under increasing economic and military pressure. The Emperor’s daughter in the 12th century, Anna Comnena, didn’t look much different from Theodora, though six hundred years had passed.
