A greenish-brown, diamond-twill, boat-neck wool sweater woven between 230 and 380 and worn by a reindeer hunter was discovered by researchers in 2013. The tunic, which was mended with two patches, had been preserved in the Norwegian Lendbreen glacier and would have fit a slender man of about 5'9". “The hunter,” said researcher Lise Bender Jørgensen, “looked after his clothing.”

As a member of a Cherokee delegation to Washington, DC, Sam Houston wore traditional loincloth and blanket to an 1818 meeting with Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, who was offended and chastised Houston for his dress. Twenty-two years later, between terms as president of the Republic of Texas, Houston wore such a blanket to meet Jean Pierre Isidore Alphonse Dubois, comte de Saligny, in Austin.

Winston Churchill claimed the soft texture of woven silk underwear was vital to his well-being; “I have a very delicate and sensitive cuticle which demands the finest covering,” he said. His wife, Clementine, told a friend that his pink underclothes “cost the eyes out of the head.”

“For the first time in my life I saw the ‘library’ public in the mass!” wrote Arnold Bennett after attending an H.G. Wells lecture in 1911. “It appeared to consist of a thousand women and Mr. Bernard Shaw. Women deemed to be elegant, women certainly deeming themselves to be elegant! I, being far back from the rostrum, had a good view of the backs of their blouses, chemisettes, and bodices. What an assortment of pretentious and ill-made toilettes!”