Dressed: The History of Fashion · Dressed Media

Bog Fashion: Dressing the Bronze and Iron Ages with Nicole DeRushie

November 12, 2025·1 hr 11 min·7 clips

The Egtved Girl's 3,500-year-old string skirt went viral, sparking debates about ancient rituals and modern style.

This episode of *Dressed: The History of Fashion* explores clothing from the European Bronze and Iron Ages with guest Nicole DeRushie, an ancient textiles scholar and practitioner. Hosts April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary, fashion historians, welcome DeRushie to discuss her book *Bog Fashion: Recreating Bronze and Iron Age Clothes*. DeRushie’s work focuses on Western and Northern Europe from roughly 2500 BCE to 800 CE, a period with no written records where archaeology provides primary evidence. She explains that textiles were a vital trade commodity, with wool and cloth serving as lightweight, durable forms of economic exchange often managed by women. The iconic site of Stonehenge was elaborated during the Bronze Age, reflecting a society with complex trade networks and a worldview connected to celestial cycles. Clothing typically consisted of plant-fiber garments like linen or nettle for summer and wool wraps or cloaks as status symbols. In Bronze Age Denmark, both men and women wore wrap skirts, with women adding fitted blouses and hairnets made using a sprang technique. The transition to the Iron Age introduced trousers, more weatherproof weaves, and the use of plant dyes for colorful, patterned cloth. Preservation of these garments often occurs in bogs, which are acidic, low-oxygen peatlands that excellently preserve animal fibers like wool and leather. A surprising insight is that the Romans initially viewed trousers as barbaric, though they later adopted them for practicality. DeRushie highlights a reproduced Bronze Age belt disc from Denmark that would have shone brightly in the sun, possibly denoting status or religious affiliation. She notes that experimental archaeology, where craftspeople use ancient techniques to recreate artifacts, provides crucial data on production time and skill that traditional archaeology might miss. The Must Farm site in Cambridgeshire preserved textile patterns through carbonized fibers from a fire, not the original material. DeRushie critiques historical archaeological reports, stating their commentary often reveals more about the finders' biases than the finds themselves. She emphasizes that being a skilled practitioner is essential for accurately estimating the labor involved in ancient textile production. The tone is educational and conversational, with the hosts expressing genuine excitement about delving into a new historical period for the podcast. The style is interview-based, allowing the guest to detail her multidisciplinary research combining history, craft, and outdoor education. Listeners interested in experimental archaeology, ancient textiles, or challenging Hollywood stereotypes about "primitive" past societies would love this episode. Those seeking fashion analysis from more recent, documented historical periods might prefer to skip it.

As heard by us

A thoughtful look at Bronze Age and Iron Age dress that stays honest about fragmentary evidence.

Dressed moves into a time and place the podcast has not covered before, reaching back over 4,000 years to the European Bronze Age and Iron Age.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Ancient European dress, fragments, and a patient historical eye.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Dressed: The History of Fashion