How to dress while visiting Milara?
When visiting
Milara, and especially our capital
Lernée, be sure to put on your best clothes to make a good impression!
Foreigners are suspicious enough without looking indecent...
Types of clothes
The first thing to be aware of is that us Milarians do not expose any parts of our body beyond a small occasional décolleté. Our arms might be visible, but only through gossamer sleeves. The tibia are only left bare by manual workers, and so this immediately betrays a working class individual.
Duellers and
soldiers might wear short skirts , but in such a case they cover them with “guards ”.
The second rule is that we do not wear trousers under any circumstances: long robes are our preferred type of clothing. They might be replaced with long tunic or skirts by active people such as farmers, manufacturers workers, and soldiers. The robes can also be in many different style, e.g., close-fitting or floating over the body, opened, with panels, or fully closed.... The material of the robes is either wool or linen, depending on the season.
Undergarment
We wear a linen undergarment under our robes so as to protect them. It is generally a close-fitting, sleeveless tunic.
Sleeves
Milarians wear long sleeves. They are worn everyday by everyone not working in manual labour, and are even worn for formal occasions by this last category of people. Even duellers prefer to wear long sleeves despite the inconvenience, and instead clip them to their forearm during duels. Military officers do the same thing, but simple soldiers have no choice but to suffer the indignity of close-fitting sleeves.
Long sleeves are often a second set of sleeves made of a gossamer material and are worn over close-fitting sleeves. These undersleeves might be shed off for afternoon where during summer, but the style is considered osé and flirty outside of heat waves. In winter, long sleeves made of solid material are preferred.
There are no specifications on the length of the sleeves, but politicians and royalty prefer extremely long and unpractical sleeves, with the fabric often reaching the ground. Us from the rest of the population are more sensible.
Decorations
Our robes are covered in embroideries that show off
abstract art, with small magical device jewellery sewn into the material. This means that our dress style combines beauty and practicality, by allowing our clothes to stay clean, keep at the perfect temperature, protect us, catch attention, and show off our wealth and power. Even when the magic is not meant for the robes, it means always having our best devices at hand.
Hair should stay long and be worn in braids, so as to weave in them similar ribbons and jewellery. However, be careful to look up different braid styles! You don't want to show a lack of taste or a style from the last decade. Sewing your hair together can help achieve more interesting styles, but be careful to use plain thread for this, as you will have to cut it to get it off.
Colour
In Milara, we love all kinds of colours and do not have any taboo! All of our dyes use the same type of
pigments as our abstract art, and so can conduct magic perfectly.
Some styles of robes look fully like these art pieces, using the same association of colours going with specific magics. This allows everyone to see at a glance what types of protective wards a set of robes have, and what other fancy magics their owner splurged on.
Other styles of robes do not use that colour-magic association. Instead, the robes have a base colour, to which are added ribbons and embroidery threads in freely-chosen colours, so as to ensure a more harmonious whole.
Examples
Do not miss admiring the wonderful robes worn by our leaders!
Such a nice fashion article, it's easy to follow and to the point. It does a good job of feeling like being written for people that might be unfamiliar with the culture. The examples section is a nice touch to get to see the wear in practice.
Thanks <3 The examples are only recycling illustration so far, but I think I should do something special for this article to really showing how they combine colours without fear XD
Ooooh I'd love to see that! :D