I am currently writing a chapter entitled ‘Global Fashion in Antiquity’ for the forthcoming Cambridge Global History of Fashion, edited by Giorgio Riello, Christopher Breward and Beverly Lemire. Due to be published in January 2022 by Cambridge University Press, my chapter will look at the ways in which changing fashions in antiquity cast an important spotlight on the interconnectedness of communities in the ancient past. From the Mediterranean to China, new fashion trends were created by the arrival of new products and technologies, as well as through the desire to emulate and express affinity with foreign cultures, to justify position and authority through the possession of objects from far afield; and even, on occasion, through the desire to change people’s culture through fashion as an alternative to war.
