The origin of clothing & how to make a basic wardrobe of clothes

In addition to growing and preparing food that provides complete nutrition, another useful skill for achieving self-sufficiency is making the clothing needed for daily life.

Further down the page, you‘ll find a list of basic clothing items suited for various temperatures and weather conditions. My goal is to learn how to make these items myself as part of a more self-sufficient lifestyle. As I progress, I will add links to posts detailing the process of creating each piece.

I plan to use materials primarily made from plant and animal fibers that are biodegradable, renewable, and easier to produce without industrial processes. This approach aligns with traditional, small-scale production methods and makes the process more accessible.

Even if you don’t end up making all of your clothes, learning the skills to do so can make it easier to repair clothing. By repairing your clothes instead of purchasing new ones, you can avoid supporting the fast fashion industry, which negatively impacts both communities and the environment. It’s also rewarding to get creative and craft something that fits perfectly, rather than settling for store-bought alternatives.

The Origin of Nakedness and the Advent of Clothing

Clothing has been worn by humans for various reasons, including protection against the environment and cultural expression. It has been made of raw plant material, like woven grasses, animal skins as well as processed to produce more individual fibers, like in the cases of wool, cotton and flax, for textiles. Here we will focus on the definition of clothing as “items that cover or enclose the body”, not jewellery, costume or body modification.

Genetic studies of humans and lice suggest that very early “humans” had significantly more body hair and lighter skin. After a period between 240,000 and 3,000,000 years ago, scientists propose humans experienced the loss of body hair and the darkening of skin.¹ These changes likely helped with thermoregulation and provided better protection against UV radiation. In higher latitudes, the lightening of skin in Neanderthals and some Homo sapiens occured again, potentially due to the decreased UV radiation and the increased need for vitamin D synthesis.

Although no direct evidence of clothing exists from this period, there is substantial indirect evidence to reasonably infer the existence of clothing during the Paleolithic period.¹

One model used to predict when humans first started wearing clothing is the thermal model. By analyzing data from paleoenvironmental and human biological sciences, scientists can estimate that thermal conditions during the Pleistocene would have made it necessary for humans to protect themselves from factors like wind chill.¹ A recent study has identified regions of the genome and specific genes that may be involved in the process of humans losing their hair.² It is hypothesised that when humans had lost their body hair the climate was warmer, but then the onset of the last glacial cycle may have forced humans to use clothing to adapt to this cold.¹

The study of lice provides another line of evidence. Using the “molecular clock,” scientists have estimated when body lice, pubic lice, and head lice first diverged and began to exist as distinct species.^1,3 Unlike our closest primate relatives, which host only one species of lice, humans have three distinct species: head lice, body lice, and pubic lice. This differentiation could indicate environmental changes on the human body, where the loss of body hair, while sparing the head and pubic areas, created different environments for lice to thrive. The presence of pubic lice suggests that humans lost their body hair around 3,000,000 years ago, although the climate was likely not cold enough to require clothing at this point. It wasn’t until the Ice Ages began that the need for clothing became more plausible, coinciding with the appearance of body lice, which live on clothing. Genetic analysis of body lice suggests that the origin of clothing occurred between 72,000 and 107,000 years ago, with more recent studies estimating the divergence of head lice from body lice around 90,000 years ago.¹

Stone tools, such as hide-scrapers (dating hundreds of thousands of years ago) and eye-needles (around 35,000 years ago),¹ also provide evidence of clothing development. Early clothing would have likely involved the use of animal skins.⁴ Fibers were already being used at this time, though not necessarily for clothing or fabrics. Instead, they were used for items such as cordage and jewellery, with fibers possibly spun or twisted intentionally. Animal skins may have been used in simple draping forms initially, and as more sophisticated tools, like eye-needles, were developed, more complex garments made from animal skins and furs could have been created.

Pieces of clay found in the Czech Republic bare imprints that resemble twisted and woven textile or basketry that date to around 26,000 years ago.⁵ Clay “Venus” figurines from the Paleolithic era depict women wearing items that seem woven,⁶but some argue that these look more decorative rather than pieces of everyday clothing that “enclose” the body.

The flax and cotton plants were domesticated at least around 10,000 years ago.⁴ Sheep were domesticated around this same time,⁷ but scientists suspect it was for their meat, rather than their wool. Woolly sheep seem to have been domesticated around 7000 years ago,⁸ suggesting that wool was probably used for textiles from at least this time.⁹ It is also possible that humans were inspired to make felted woollen textiles or primitive woven wool textiles after witnessing the matting of wool as it malted from early domesticated sheep.⁸

Direct evidence of physical clothing is sparse due to material degradation. The oldest shoes, found in Oregon, USA, are dated to over 7,000 years ago and are made of woven sagebrush bark. The oldest leather shoe was found in Armenia, dating to around 5,500 years ago. One of the oldest pieces of fabric clothing is the Tarkhan Dress, discovered in Egypt, made from linen over 5,000 years ago. Ötzi the Iceman, Europe’s oldest natural mummy, lived near the Alps around the same time as the Egyptian dress and was found wearing clothes made of both animal skins and woven grass. Some of the earliest physical woollen textiles comes from a bog in Denmark that dates to 3500 years ago, but again, this is likely much later than the actual first woollen textiles and clothes.⁸

The combination of genetic studies, lice divergence, and archaeological findings provides compelling indirect evidence for the early use of clothing. The transition from a hair-covered body to one requiring protection from the elements likely coincided with environmental changes, such as the onset of the Ice Ages, making clothing essential for survival. The development of tools for working with fibers and animal skins, along with the appearance of woven textiles, further supports the idea that early humans gradually began to cover their bodies for warmth, protection, and possibly cultural expression. While the timeline remains imprecise and clothing techniques may have depended on geographic location, it is clear that clothing has played a crucial role in human evolution, offering both practical benefits and symbolic meaning from its earliest forms to the present day.

Basics for all temperatures

• Underwear
• Bra
• Bikini

Hot

• Sleeveless crop top or basic singlet
• Short, medium (another medium-length skirt here) & long skirt
• Shorts
• T-shirt
• Cotton socks
• Wide-brimmed hat
• Raincoat - can I make one without plastics?

Mild

• Long pants
• Long-sleeve shirt
• Cardigan

Cool

• Tight knitted top
• Leggings
• Large loose knitted jumper
• Woollen socks
• Woollen headband

Cold

• Scarf
• Gloves
• Beanie
• Thick woollen jumper
• Coat, cloak or cape

References