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Catalog > Ladies & Teens Dresses > Simple & Plain > History of the Cape Dress
The history of the 'Cape Dress' goes back to Greek/Roman times. The Cape Dress is actually very close to the Greek stola/katastola that Paul seems to refer to in 1 Tim. 2:9-10. The cape dress is very similar to that modest dress of old, and Paul seems to refer to it in his letter when he uses the word katastole in 1 Tim. 2:9.
That women adorn themselves "kai tav gonaikav ev katastolh koamiw." The apostle seems to refer here to different parts of the Grecian and Roman dress. The stolh, stola, seems to have been originally very simple. It was a long piece of cloth, doubled in the middle, and sewed up on both sides, leaving room only for the arms; at the top, a piece was cut out, or a slit made, through which the head passed. It hung down to the feet, both before and behind, and was girded with the zona round the body, just under the breasts. It was sometimes made with, sometimes without, sleeves; and, that it might sit the better, it was gathered on each shoulder with a band or buckle. Some of the Greek women wore them open on each side, from the bottom up above the knee, so as to discover a part of the thigh. These were termed fainomhridev, showers (discoverers) of the thigh; but it was, in general, only young girls or immodest women who wore them thus.
A more modest and becoming dress than the Grecian was never invented; it was, in a great measure, revived in England about the year 1805, and in it, simplicity, decency, and elegance were united; but it soon gave place to another mode, in which frippery and nonsense once more prevailed.
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