---
node: fashion_prehistoric_britain
type: fashion
slug: prehistoric_britain_fashion
title: "Fashion in Prehistoric Britain"
lead: "Prehistoric Britons dressed in wool and leather; Bronze- and Iron-Age finds show woven woollen garments fastened with pins and brooches, and the Celtic peoples were known for checked and striped cloth."
published: 2026-07-28
updated: 2026-08-15
---

## Overview

Almost no prehistoric British clothing survives, so this is a page built from the things that outlast cloth: pins, brooches, loom weights, and the occasional garment preserved by chance in a bog or a coffin. What can be said with confidence is that Britain was a wool country very early.

## Key garments and style

Bronze Age evidence comes mostly from burials. Oak-coffin graves have preserved woollen cloth in a few cases, and spindle whorls and loom weights are common finds, so spinning and weaving were household work by the second millennium BC.

Iron Age dress is better documented, partly by classical writers describing people they were fighting. A tunic, a cloak fastened at the shoulder with a brooch, and for men trousers of the type worn across the Celtic world; woollens in checks and stripes, remarked on by Roman authors as characteristically British and Gaulish. Torcs — heavy neck rings in gold or bronze — were the status object, and the ones from Snettisham are among the finest metalwork of the period.

Dye evidence supports the colour: woad and other plant dyes were available, and cloth was patterned in the weave rather than printed.

## Transition

The Roman conquest from AD 43 brought Mediterranean cut and imported cloth into the province, and native dress continued underneath it.