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Tue Feb 26 21:56:55 PST 2008

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<http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080225/sc_livescience/vikingwomendressedprovocatively>http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080225/sc_livescience/vikingwomendressedprovocatively

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Viking Women Dressed Provocatively

<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/byline/vikingwomendressedprovocatively/26479271/SIG=11nsdukp6/*http://www.space.com/php/contactus/feedback.php?r=jbr>Jeanna 
Bryner
LiveScience Staff Writer
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/byline/vikingwomendressedprovocatively/26479271/SIG=10sog4vj6/*http://www.livescience.com>LiveScience.comMon 
Feb 25, 4:10 PM ET
A runway fashion show in Viking times would have 
spotlighted women cloaked in imported 
colored-silk gowns adorned with metallic breast coverings and long trains.
This surprising claim is the result of a new 
analysis of remnants from a woman's wardrobe 
discovered in a grave dating back to the 10th 
century in Russia, painting a picture of Viking 
panache before Christianity was established that 
runs counter to previous ideas about buttoned-up, prudish looking Norsewomen.
"Now we can say the pre-Christian dress code was 
very rich," textiles researcher Annika Larsson of 
Uppsala University in Sweden told LiveScience. 
"When Christianity came, the dress was more like 
that of nuns. There was a big difference."
The fashion findings go beyond apparel, revealing 
that the Viking Age from 750 A.D. to 1050 A.D. 
was not uniform and might even have been sort of 
sexy. (The findings here apply to the Swedish 
Vikings, who mostly traveled east into modern-day 
Russia and further on to Byzantium and beyond, 
rather than the Danish/Norwegian Vikings who went westward).
"Textile research can tell us more about the 
state of society than research into traditions. 
Old rituals can live on long after society has 
changed, but when trade routes are cut off, 
there's an immediate impact on clothing fashions," Larsson said.
Larsson discovered a blue silk dress and 
associated ornaments in a grave in the Russian 
region of Pskov, close to Novgorod and the 
eastern trade routes then plied by Vikings from 
Sweden. She said the dress was positioned in the 
grave as a gift likely to be worn in an afterlife.
Until now, anthropological evidence showed a 
Viking woman wearing an apron on top of a linen 
robe. The apron consisted of two rectangular 
pieces of cloth, in which strings on the back 
panel attached to the front with brooches. The 
outfit was completed with an outer woolen shawl or sweater.
The new finding reveals instead that a Viking 
woman's dress consisted of a single piece of 
fabric with an opening in the front. A pair of 
brooches, or clasps, was situated on top of the 
breasts to accentuate the wearer's figure.
"It's easy to imagine that the Christian church 
had certain reservations about clothing that 
accentuated the breasts in this way and, what's 
more, exposed the under shift in front," Larsson 
said. "It's also possible that this clothing was 
associated with pre-Christian rituals and was 
therefore forbidden" once Christianity became established.
The changes in clothes over time indicate that 
medieval Christian fashions hit Sweden as early 
as the late 900s, a time when new trade routes 
came into use, Larsson said. Overall, Oriental 
features in clothing disappeared when 
Christianity came and the Vikings started to 
trade with the Christian Byzantine and Western Europe, she said.