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The Wheel
The wheel was invented c. 3500 BCE for the production of ceramics – the first potter’s wheel – and only later came to be used for transportation. Although the oldest wheel found thus far – the Ljubljana Marshes Wheel – comes from Central Europe, the concept of the wheel is believed to have originated in Mesopotamia earlier. By c. 3000 BCE, the Sumerians were using two-wheeled and four-wheeled carts and wagons to transport people and goods.
The mainstay of early Mesopotamian fashion was the following. It is called a “kaunake” and it's this sort of a wrap-around skirt, worn quite high on both men and women. On men – just under the nipple; on women – wrapped under one arm and over the shoulder of another.
But what the Mesopotamian tiered skirt is made out of? Some costume historians maintain that it was made of cloth, that this cloth was just cut into these wonderful leaf scalloped shapes. Other historians think that a kaunake was made out of leaves because they really do look like leaves on various Mesopotamian sculptures. Others, however, say they were made out of feathers. No Mesopotamian clothing exists to this day, so we just have to guess. Maybe they were made of all three.
But one thing we know the Mesopotamians gave us was fringe. They wore nuts for fringe – we see it on carvings, we see it on sculptures. This was a culture that really used clothing to reflect itself, to reflect status. Fringe on everything
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