In the sweet grasslands of the Vingaard River Valley, in Abanasinia, and on the slopes of stony hills in Khur where tough grasses grow, shepherds and their families tend their flocks. With dogs to guard them and to herd for them, they watch their sheep throughout the year, in summer and fall and winter, until the time to shear has come again, in spring. The sheep and lambs shorn, the shepherd's wife and children clean the wool and snip the mats. They tuck in the four leg pieces, make a rope of twisted neck wool, roll up the fleece, and bind it. With fleece after fleece this work is done until the wool rooms are filled, soon to be graded and stored. If the night after working is cool, one can see mist rising from these bundles, the heat of the shorn lamb or the now naked sheep still radiating. It is as though the fleece, the wool, were itself gently breathing. Once the wool is shorn from the fleece, packed and breathing in the wool rooms, it will be weighed. As it has ever been, in all lands, the standard of measure is the same:

This is woolgathering, part of the seasons-long and many-layered tasks involved in making for you the shirt you are wearing, the hose that keeps your legs warm, your wife's skirts, and your sister's blouses. This time-honored task is thought about seldom by those who don't engage in it, and when it is, the term woolgathering is too often spoken in derision, another way to speak of wasted time and daydreaming. Who speaks this way has no idea what it is to gather wool or to spin or weave or fashion thread and cloth.

Yet, perhaps his ignorance can be forgiven, and perhaps we need not be hard on him. The one who sneers knows, I am sure, the tales of heroes, the doings of the lost gods, the politics of his homeland and even the lands of others. He knows these from books if he is well educated, and even those who have never seen the inside of a schoolroom know the deeds of heroes from songs and the poetry of bards. In praise of weavers, though, of spinners, in praise of dye-makers, fullers and carders, the herdsmen who raises sheep, the hunter who takes down the doe… in praise of these, few poems have been penned, few songs made and sung. Yet, where would the people of Krynn be without them, seamstresses in Palanthas, working late into the night for the sake of a lady's gown, tailors in Qualinost laboring to make a lord's costume, cobblers and armorers in Thorbardin, all the folk who clothe the folk of Krynn? Burned in summer, shivering in winter, and walking around as though we lived all our lives in caves wishing for tougher skin and more than tender down to cover our hides! So let us pause, before we pass, let us see how the fantasies of ladies are brought to life, the tough clothing of hunters made, the leather aprons of smiths and tinkers crafted.

We do love color, we of this world. In all lands, in all times, we have sought and still seek it. In Hylo, kenders grow the marigolds we use for dyes to make our silks golden, and henna to make just the right shade of yellow or brown. In Qualinost they grind alkanet root so they may export fabrics the colors of wine; they endure the collection of the insect dactylopius coccus that they may boil them whole and obtain the color fuchsia and the deep shades of purple so treasured by princes. From the heartwood of the mulberry, the humans in what is left of Solamnia make the extract fustic and happily apply it to their wools and cottons and silks so we may mimic the golden colors of autumn. We of Krynn would leach the colors from rainbows, if we could only devise a method.

These colors we feed to our fabrics: the wool grown by herders, the leathers obtained by huntsmen, the silk woven by worms. We employ weavers by the scores, armies of spinners, carders to comb the wool, and seamstresses to sew up our clothing. In the cotton fields, we pick the white fluffy bolls and bleed over the thorny hulls. Upon looms we weave the bleached or dyed threads to make bolts of cloth. With great care, in all nations, among all races, we set up a system of apprenticeship so that our craftsmen can pass down tools and knowledge, one to another. They are fine and fair in the lands of the elves, the Silvanesti and the Qualinesti; they are dour and steadfast in the lands of the dwarfs, but it is the same for each—the skills of the clothier, the weaver, the spinner are admired and appreciated.

There are, then, some things to be said about raiment in these after-days we now call the Fifth Age of Krynn. We will not speak as though all races are one race, for among the varying kindreds exist custom and traditions that guide, when it exists at all, fashion. We will speak of the garb of the men and women of elvenkind, humankind, the dwarven kindred, kenders and gully dwarfs and gnomes and minotaurs. We need not speak of children, for it has ever been that in every land of Krynn, among all kindreds, they are garbed as smaller versions of their elders. Neither will we speak of centaurs and dryads, for the former decorate themselves only at will, and the dear dryads will always clothe themselves as their trees do, in the shades of the seasons.

Perhaps the most interesting change to note among the clothed of Krynn is in the garb of the magi. No longer do mages go dressed in robes the colors of their affiliations, red or black or white. What significance hold the god-colors when there are no gods? The rites and rituals of magic, including those restricting the shape and color of clothing, are vanishing. [This change took place only gradually, as many mages for years clung to the hope that their old orders might be resurrected. The final blow was struck in 28 SC at the Last Conclave, when the old orders were formally disbanded. Shortly afterward, of course, Palin Majere founded a new school of sorcery near Solace.] What remain are vestiges of a time when the three Magical Children, those scions of gods, granted magic for a prayer and a pretty ritual. In these days of mysticism and sorcery, you will often not recognize a magic-user by his robe, for he is likely to be seen wearing the gear of a farmer or a hunter or a townsman, she is as often to be found wearing the silken gowns of a lady of Palanthas or the humble dress of a milkmaid's daughter. Do they miss the robe and the ceremony? I have heard it from the elders among them, those who remember the before-times, that some do, now and then, sigh for the scent of roses and exotic oils, and they miss the whisper of a dark robe at midnight, the sigh of a white robe in the dawning, or the startling suddenness of a red robe in the mist. "But times do change," says a mage of my acquaintance, he who is rightly known as wise among the wise. "And now we dress as we will."

He does, himself, though keep his white robe, if not always to wear, sometimes to take from the coffer and look upon. "Clothing," he tells me, "is first to keep a man warm in winter, a maid dry in the rain. But after, it is to signal to others who we are, perhaps who we believe we are. Or, who we wish the world around to think we are. Once," he said, his voice warm and wistful, "that white robe of mine told all the world I had made a commitment to a god I do still miss."

Out of Silvanesti, to our sorrow, we hear little word. Do the elf women go garbed in softest velvet of midnight blue, of sunrise pink, the green of seas, or fiery orange? Can we say with certainty that they yet pile up their lovely tresses of silver and golden so they may wear the shimmering veils of sheerest silks flowing from their coiffures as clouds stream round the glimmering sun-shining mountains? Are their rich damask and silky satin gowns the backdrop for their fabulous jewelry? We have naught but questions, memories, and surmises when it comes to the fashions of the Silvanesti these days. Perhaps the women yet promenade in the Garden of Astarin wearing webs of tulle and lace or stiffened gowns of whispering taffeta. Perhaps the men still go draped in velvet robes or ride out to hunt in leather and silk. It may be that the Silvanesti, man and woman and child, sleep in linen in summer and warmest flannel in winter, and that their undergarb is of sweet silk.

We do not know, we can only imagine that elf men and women of high degree do still go shod in velvet and kidskin when they glide through the marble palaces, the far-famed towers of their homeland. Their children, we think must do the same as mother and father, the wealthy dressed in fabrics that are themselves treasures, the servitors geared in rough dun wool. We suspect that these servitors still go shod in stout boots, still fare forth in utilitarian gear the color all the world of Krynn has come to know as "servant's brown." This brown is obtained from walnut dye and not at all the same shade as the tawny color of an elf’s hunting leathers To dye these latter garments, the elves bleed acacia trees. The huntsman must blend with the forest, and his browns are meant to make him into a shadow. Neither are his muted greens much akin to the emerald of a lady's rich gown. His grays are not like the muted silver that once had a brief vogue of but three hundred years among the lords and ladies of the speaker's court. Huntsfolk wear the plumage of the forest, the green of oaks, the gray of bark, the brown of earth or a deer's pelt.

It has been known, and is yet assumed, that the soldiery of Silvanesti has ceremonial gear and fighting gear. The latter is of the same utilitarian kind as any warrior in the field, leather harness, leather trews, supple chain mail, tough woolen shirts and good boots for walking. This is the case for Wildrunners on the ground and Windriders who travel the skies on the backs of griffons. In ceremony, however, the elven soldiers wear a fantasy of armor, plumed helms of silver adorned with bright gems and enamels, breastplates of beaten gold, and mail of finest platinum. Their dirks and daggers are crusted in jewels, their sword hilts often crafted of one whole gemstone. "Jingling courtiers," say the dwarves, and the fierce minotaurs mutter worse insults than that, but the elves are proud of their ceremonial splendor and have not ever cared what those think whom they consider the less-beloved of the vanished gods.

Ah, the Silvanesti! They were not much for outlanders in any era, yet we miss them.

Not all elvenkind is lost to us, however. There are still the Dimernesti, the sea elves who ply the ocean's secret roads as we do the paths of the land. They have not flung aside their old fashions because the age or the world has changed. It is, of course true, that the great sea dragon, Brynseldimer made the Bay of Balifor a steamy bath for them, but undaunted, the Dimernesti move on or stay as they choose. [Brynseldimer was slain in 33 SC by a bold group of heroes.] Some of those who stay find themselves among the dragon's slaves, but others yet remain free. Go down to the sea, and you will find them in the shoals, lovely folk whose clothing looks like no more than kelp and seaweed to the unwatchful, clothing that is in reality spun on magical wheels by websters who know how to mimic all the colors of the sea, the thousand shades of blue and green, the smokey brown of fishes in cool climes and the startlingly vivid colors of the tropical fishes and their corals. It is, of course, true—by all accounts—that the Dimernesti who live in the warmer bay now wear shockingly less of their magically woven clothing than they had in the past been known to wear. Some land-goers will blush to see the long-limbed maidens clad in wisps, and avert their eyes from the well-made young men whose clothing seems naught but clouds. The wise will accept that the customs of others, no matter how strange-seeming, are born from need and so offer no judgment or chastisement.

Enslaved as a race by the green dragon Beryllinthranox, still some few of the elves of Qualinesti can be seen. [Though Qualinesti has been occupied by the Knights of Neraka, a small band of rebels led by the mysterious elf called the Lioness continue to resist their rule.] These fine folk, thought nominally slaves, are not reduced to rags. Rather, they keep their fair garb according to their status, their silks and satins of rare blues and purples, of shining gold. Bejeweled, they glitter as ever they have done. Theirs is a political servitude, for the dragon who rules them is a cunning beast who rewards traitor elves with power, whose minions punish the recalcitrant with death. She does not leave the Qualinesti ragged, only wretched.

Some few of the Qualinesti do wander abroad, and they are most often found in Abanasinia. These wayfarers are not, most often, the lords and ladies of the land. They are hunters and scouts and Wildrunners who work in the resistance, their efforts given to the cause of freeing their kin. Theirs is the gear of those who live rough in the wood: supple boots, shirts of sueded leather, trews of tough woolen weave. As their cousins in Silvanesti, these hunter-folk go dressed in woodland colors, slipping like shadows through the trees, looking like creatures from legend come into the towns when they are seen on the streets of Solace or Haven or Long Ridge. Roughly they dress, but their love of beauty is not betrayed. Adorning elf men and women alike, one finds earrings of gold and platinum; upon the finger one finds a ring set with diamonds; round the neck hangs a golden chain. Their quivers are of finest leather, their scabbards tooled in such complex designs that the eye cannot trace and the finger must follow.

Wild-seeming, the few Qualinesti you will see, but not so wild as the Kagonesti. Those people of Southern Ergoth have ever been the most colorful of elves. So said their distant kin of Qualimori and Silvamori, shocked by their gear and their body paints and. tattoos. Now, however, all elves in Ergoth, whether sophisticated Qualinesti and Silvanesti or wild Kagonesti, go dressed as warmly as they may, with little attention paid to fashion. That land, once know for its silvery sea strand and brooding mountains, fragrant pine forests, and shimmering glades, is now akin to Icewall, a frozen waste where man and woman and child alike dare not step out the door unless muffled in furs and hidden in hoods. Gellidus, the fearsome white overlord, has completely transformed the land into his own private paradise—one deadly for humans and others.

Indoors, though, the Kagonesti dress in leggings and shirts, gowns and dresses of flanneled wool. Their chosen colors are all the hues of sea and woodland, for if their homeland is a wintery waste, the Wilder Elves do not forget what it used to be. It must be mentioned, as well, that these are the folk who, in some quarters are known as the twice-robed, for in the privacy of bed or bath, it will be seen that the range of their body painting and tattoos is truly astounding. There is, by report of a Caergothian seaman whose word I have reason to trust, one clan of Wilder Elves who have recorded their history upon their own bodies, the births and deaths, the weddings and alliances all shown in a glory of tattoos slipping from neck to heel, from throat to toe. Of course, this peculiar custom is not to be taken for usual and the most of the Kagonesti content themselves with more modest displays involving illustrations of plant life, wildlife, or labyrinthine and lovely designs of their own devising.

If elves are abroad in the lands, they are not usually journeying by their own choice. However the history of dwarves in most ages of Krynn shows this doughty race is not disinclined to go among other peoples when they feel the need. The clans of Thorbardin are, just now, shut up in their mountain fastness, but there are still venturesome sons who leave the underground city, and there are those who chose not to retreat from their outland homes in the wake of the Chaos War. As well, some dwarves of the Hylar and Daewar clans have chosen to live in Garnet, the city beneath the ancient Garnet Mountains in Kayolin, and there are the Zhakar in Thoradin, though not much is known about them other than they are said to suffer from disease and madness. Of course, in all times there are the Neidar, the hill dwarves who range from Ergoth to the Astiva Mountains. Neidar or mountain cousin, you will never hear it said in any land, in any age, that a dwarf does not like to walk among his friends in gear that will rival an elf’s in worth, though perhaps his shirts and trews will never compete in sophistication of style.

Dwarves wear a wealth of history on their backs. Not a few of their swords are as old as the roots of the hills. The bucklers they wear, the helms to guard the head—many of these have seen service in conflicts as old as the Dwarfgate War itself. Treasured, tenderly cared for, these heirlooms are the pride of a dwarfs family, the jewels of his clan.

Though dwarves are far-famed as weapon smiths, the finest of their wares—when their cities are open—are priced highly enough to ransom an elven prince. Nonetheless they save their best work for themselves. So it is that when an ancient sword, breastplate, helm, or dagger at last fails, gone down in honorable battle, the smith who is commissioned to replace it goes to his forge and says to his anvils, his hammers, and his tongs, "Well, now, my children, we are met to make another heirloom." The least of the younger sons of the poorest clan can pass his armor, his weapons to his children knowing these are finer than those of any lord who ever ruled in Palanthas.

Thus for the soldiers. Now for the civilians. It is, of course, nearly axiomatic that few but dwarves can tell a thane from a clansman by his workaday gear. Thanes, as do the rest of the citizens of Thorbardin, favor plain clothing, rough fabrics of calm hue. Browns, whites, and grays are the colors a dwarf favors in his everyday use, the color of good and trusty stone. In his hall, as he walks the fabled roads of his underground city, a thane goes shod as all others do, in sturdy boots, for these are mountain folk and though, just now, they are seldom seen outside their city, their fashions are formed by traditions that grew out of need. He will gird himself in broad leather, as though he must, at any moment, be able to hang a warhammer from his hip, a sword from his waist. The fashion for wrist guards has never faded among the wealthy of the underground cities, leather bracers studded in silver and gold, adorned with intricate stitching. Utterly useless in a battle, nevertheless these fantasies of leather and metal do not fail to attract the eye. [Some bracers are believed by the more credulous to confer extra strength upon the wearer. The library, when administered by Astinus, contained several such bracers, but no one, as far as I know, ever tried them to test their supposed properties.]

Can the thane surpass his everyday wear with his festival wear? He can indeed, and though the formal festivals are few in Thorbardin and Garnet, a thane has a costume for each. He celebrates the festivals to herald the coming of spring, the full glory of summer, the last sigh of autumn, and he shows off the kind of subtle splendor that suggests he has bottomless coffers. He is, however, most resplendent at the Last Night celebrations at the beginning of the month of Cold Lode when all of Thorbardin and Garnet is filled with the light of torches and candles to hoard the light until the world turns again to spring. Dressed in warm colors of brown and golden and tawny, of red and wineberry, hung in furs, dripping jewelry, the clothing of the celebrants recalls warmer times and expresses the longing for spring, a longing felt even in the hearts of those who live away from the outside world.

As splendid as are the men of Thorbardin and Garnet, that quiet is the garb of their women, for dwarf maids and matrons are shy and plain, [Except, presumably, to dwarf males.] paying little attention to the color of their gowns, working clothes, or festival gear. They care not so much for any adornment but jewelry. Upon their gray gowns, the breasts of their brown blouses, platinum shines and diamonds glitter. They gird their waists with belts of soft leather studded with rubies, with emeralds, with opals and amethysts. In their dark hair, nets of sapphire and gold glimmer, and it is said that the dwarf woman who can bear the weight of be-gemmed earrings that hang down past her shoulder, she who can hold her head high and look her man in the eye, is a woman to be prized for strength and courage and pride (if not, say the elves, for good sense).

What then, must be said about the Neidar, men and women? Only this: They are not so wealthy as their cousins of the mountains. Bones have been picked over that matter for centuries, but the Neidar are no meaner at weapon smithing, no less skilled at the crafting of byrnies and breastplates and shields than the folk of Thorbardin or Garnet. "Dwarfs is dwarfs," say the grubby-handed urchins in the far-flung cities of Krynn, by which they mean, hill dwarf or mountain dwarf, the skill that blesses their hands is the same.

As proud as they are of their war gear, when the Neidar go among their mountain kin—and this is not often or happily—they take no shame from the homeliness of homespun, in the drabness of their shirts and trews, earth-colored fabrics, rough and nubby. This notwithstanding, it is a point of a Neidar's pride to wear the oldest, most valuable bit of jewelry he possesses in order to show wealthier kinsmen that he is not lost to any sense of what is handsome or fair. Lately, that is since the end of the Chaos War, the furs the Neidar wear in winter are fashioned to look as if they came right off the back of the beast who originally owned them, perhaps harking back to the days when, shut out of Thorbardin after the First Cataclysm, the Neidar were, indeed, forced to dress as barbarians to keep themselves warm against the driving wind and biting snows. Perhaps they are saying, to themselves and to others, "That hardship passed. So will this."

In private, that when they are not among their mountain kin, the custom of peacocks and drab peahens yet obtains among the hill dwarves, though it must be said that among the Neidar in general, wealth is not the rule. A man will have one good shirt for festival wear, perhaps a fine pair of boots he has long saved to buy, and the jewelry he inherited from his fathers, some of it as ancient as the time before the First Cataclysm. If he lives in a city such as Palanthas or Haven or down in Tarsis, a hill dwarf can make a good living for himself and his family, and then he will attend festivals in all his finery and forgive the unknowing human or elf who mistakes him for a mountain dwarf as he walks through a summer fair in linen, a winter fair in a cloak of white marten far, his rough hands warm in gloves of kidskin, his feet shod in boots of soft Ergothian leather. [It must be noted that those Neidar, or dwarves of any tribe, who make their homes in such places as the Desolation, the Northern Wastes, or the New Swamp are not such fine dressers at festival time or on regular days. As do all others who live in these stark regions, they dress for the harsh climate, and they have little reason to preen before any but their kin, for these are not lands where seasonal festivals are honored, the seasons themselves being turned on their ears and stood on their heads.]

So we have visited the dwarven thanes and the wealthy folk as well as the Neidar dwarf who has a bit of steel put by to celebrate the festivals. Now let us go among the working folk of Thorbardin and Garnet, and the Neidar. Dwarf workmen wear much the same gear as workmen the world over. A smith at his forge will wear tough leather trews, boots of thick leather, and shirts of the plainest make. He will not want the flowing sleeves that taverners sport. Rather he favors tight sleeves that will not brush the fire and inadvertently set him aflame. He will protect himself with a leather apron, and the timid apprentice will reach for leather gauntlets to keep his arms safe from forge-bites. It is much the same with any tradesman in Thorbardin and Thoradin, baker, candle maker, gem smith, the farmers in the warrens, the cooks, and barmen in the taverns. They dress in the homely gear that has ever been the uniform of their trade and craft, clothing devised over the generations for hardiness and to enhance safety. The gowns of the women are modest and full, the bodice high, the hem long and low. Depending on their trade or craft, they are covered up in aprons. Their boots are sturdy, their hair caught back in kerchiefs or chignons. Only their jewelry shines, and even this from the folds of collars or a glimmer beneath a sleeve or cuff. There has lately been, so rumor says, a fashion among dwarf seamstresses to wear their pincushions upon their wrists, little velvet balls into which pins and needles are stuck so that the women go about as though they had tiny porcupines perched on their forearms. Among the baker boys the tradition of the tall, slouched gray hat has fallen from favor—perhaps because that slouching hat has too often itself fallen into the soup or stew?—and tighter caps are now seen, made of the same gray cotton but worn cocked over one eye. The boys will do their best to seem dashing, no matter if they are but fetchers and carriers for their masters.

Plain folk, indeed, the working men and women of Thorbardin and Garnet, but it is with them as it is with their masters: When the working folk put off their workaday gear, they are as wont as their thanes to dress in finery. It has been said, by outlanders of course, that a dwarfs clothing is but backdrop for the true artistry of the race—the fabulous metal work, gem-craft, weapon-craft, but those who truly know dwarves do not discount the weavings of their websters.

Now, perhaps you wonder what is to be said about the Aghar, that benighted race known outside of the dwarven clans as gully dwarves. What indeed? How has the fashion in rags and ruined shoes changed? Not at all, one might say, and as well as it changes for any of the races of Krynn who have the misfortune to suffer gully dwarves among them. What the fine folk discard, the gully dwarves will wear, and so it is not unheard of to see a female of that kind flouncing in a nearby gutter dressed in gingham and tulle and a rag of shimmering silk (with a daub of someone's breakfast egg on the collar, a splash of something foul on the hem). Neither is it strange to see a male scurrying by, one foot thumping in a too-large boot, the other scuffing in a ragged velvet slipper, his trews held round his waist by a velvet bellpull, the hat on his head not but a human woman's discarded coin purse. Through war and cataclysm, the comings of gods and the goings of gods, the fashion sense of the gully dwarf has remained unchanged.

Humans range Krynn from Gunthar in the west to—the bravest or most foolhardy of them—the Desolation in the east. They are shut out only from Silvanesti and Qualinesti, and from Thorbardin. Otherwise, you find them everywhere. I am not sure why it is, though I am studying the matter, but the fashion of clothing among humans changes with the swiftness of the season. The change, perhaps, is slight among nomadic barbarians, the Plainsmen and the mountain dwellers and the sea-folk, but still it is noticeable.

While it is true that some barbarian tribes are now nominally part of dragon realms, the wonder of these folk is that they wander. They have always done so, following the game and the seasons, and if it is more difficult to do that across new borders, still they are not wholly checked. We in the cities have word of them more often than one might at first imagine. We know, for example, that in the mountain regions of the Kharolis, the Khalkist, and the Dargaard ranges, the tribes clothe themselves in what is available: bearskin, the pelts of wolves, the leather they tan from the hides of deer. These are traditional and functional materials, but the stylings of them subtly change. I have noted the feathers worn in bunches behind the ear one year are the next tied into the hair at the back, the year after worn at the hip. The symbolism attached to the wearing of these feathers—that here is a tribe of Plainsmen who depend upon birds for food and clothing and so wear the plumage to honor the creature who gave its life for their sake—remains constant. So it is with barbarians of the mountains who dress warmly in fur according to what beast is currently plentiful and decorate themselves with the claws and fangs of their prey. Sometimes those toothy adornments are earrings, other times necklaces, again they stud belts or decorate boots, depending upon the trend of the season.

However constant are the barbarians of the mountains and plains, those we know as sea barbarians are more changeable, their taste in clothing as fickle as the oceans they ply. Of course, at sea, the costume is always the same, belted trousers with enough room in the seam to let a man or woman range freely in the ratlines, thick boots and wide-neck shirts of thick warm wool. Ashore, however, the matter is a very different one. One season you will see these sailor-folk striding around a port city bedecked in satins and silks, another in linen fair with earrings of gold and brooches of agate, or eschewing earrings altogether and girding themselves in belts studded with brass or with enameled pins. The women are not modest, being used to their bodies and as unashamed of them as any warrior woman; the men are not dissimilar. Each sex shares a love for color and style and, always, change. This love of change, we think, is because they come so often into contact with the humans of the port cities. In port or inland, it has been said that city dwellers think of their bodies as canvasses and their tailors as artists.

Rich or middling or poor, in Free Realms or Dragon Realms, the humans who live in cities willingly set themselves in thrall to style and fashion, the creations of the wealthy being imitated by the rest. Kaleidoscopic! It's the only word to use to describe the fashions of those who can afford to support tailors and milliners.

What was the rage in Palanthas last year is the height (or, shall we say, depth) of pitiable bad taste this year. It must not be assumed that what the stylish are wearing in Palanthas even as I pen this screed will be happily borne upon the back of the elite in Tarsis. May Fate be kind to the mule who must carry the trunks of the Palanthian lady to a reception in Hargoth, for she leaves the city dressed in that pleasant style of a huntswoman—sueded leather trews, boots of softest kidskin meant to imitate an elven hunter's footgear, a blouse of billowing silk the exact shade of shadows, and her hair braided with silk and leather to look like a hunter's queue—and must carry with her trunks overflowing with gossamer gowns, fur wraps, and hats winged with white-and-blue feathers in order to arrive at her destination robed in the Hargothian mode of the day. Last year in Hargoth they all looked like pirates, the year before the women of Tarsis looked like desert barbarians, robed from head to toe with only flashing eyes showing.

We have, till now, discussed the clothing and styles among the wealthy, or at least the burgher class who can afford to spend their steel on changing styles. These things being said, you must not think that humans have not, in some places, had to scramble to learn how to make clothing for themselves out of the offerings of a land whose climate and features have changed drastically within living memory.

Imagine the joy of the farmer who inherited his father's hardscrabble farm in what used to be the stony desert running right up to Thorbardin's door? He now lives in lush woodlands filled with game and covered in rich black soil! He knows the stories of his father and grandfather, the tales of wresting a living from the unyielding earth in that place where only rocks and snakes and scrubby brush live. He looks upon the land he has cleared of trees and sees his cattle thriving, his family warmly dressed for a cooler clime than his fathers knew. He must, indeed, tithe to a dragon's overseer, but he has enough left to purchase (or barter for) cotton fiber from the marketplace, shipped down river from Haven. His wife spins while his daughters weave contentedly through the winter. They have not much steel, but they have, in the main, a better supply of food for the table and clothing for the back. If they fear Beryllinthranox, the dragon who rules the land now, they do not fear nakedness before the elements.

That self-same joy in abundance seems a distant dream, perhaps a mad memory, to the few humans who live at the edges of the New Swamp. The lives of their families for generations had been the contented, self-sufficient lives of farmers who worked the round of the seasons, eating what they grew, clothing themselves in fabrics of their own weaving, wool from the sheep, linen from the flax fields. Their materials were plain, the patterns in them came not from dyes but from the shades of the wool and the bleaching of the sun. No more, no more, for nothing good lives in the swamp. Clothing, or the means to make it, must be bought in the towns.

On Ergoth, humans have learned to go in fur and wool where once they enjoyed four seasons. Gone are the light cotton blouses of milkmaids and the gaily colored skirts. These are replaced by leggings of wool. Man and woman and child, these folk haven't worn less than three layers of shirts to bed in years, and no one much complains when the household dogs want to pile onto the beds. The same obtains for the folk who live along the southernmost rim of the Plains of Dust. No dust flies in the winds now! Only snow and sleet come. The days are spent fishing while the nights are spent skinning seals and ice bears for their pelts. The people go no more to Tarsis to trade, for the way now is icy and long. They receive few traders in their little hamlets. They are in another world from that their parents knew, and while in Tarsis the women imitate their traditional garb of robes, the people who live in the desert now are constrained to learn how to dress as the folk of Icewall dress. Let us not forget those poor wretches found not at the edges of the New Swamp but actually living in the miserable place. There the undead roam, and the fashion of the day is whatever it was they perished wearing.

We have spoken of the self-sustaining farmers, and the wealthy of the cities who have steel to spare, and now we turn to the craftsmen among humans, the carpenters and cooks and bakers and chandlers, the forgemen and the farriers, the weavers, the seamstresses and the tailors. As we have said about dwarves, the human craftsman or tradesman will wear the comfortable gear of his work, unofficial uniforms, time-honored and true. However, among humans those "uniforms" do vary from region to region, from season to season. If the baker boys in Thorbardin are wearing tight caps cocked over the eye this year, the baker lads in Palanthas are wearing tall hats that do not slouch but are stiffened by starch. The taller the hat, the closer is the lad to leaving his apprenticeship and attaining journeyman status. Seamstresses, however, mark their state in just the opposite way—the shorter their apron, the closer they are to becoming journeywomen. [The researcher does not mention the garb of the Order of Aesthetics to which I belong, so I shall briefly mention it here. To guard against the cold that envelopes the library (for obvious reasons, we permit no fires in the place), we wear heavy robes, the color of which signifies our place in the Order's hierarchy. The robes are shaded from pale gray for the youngest novices to dark green for the highest levels of the Order. Beyond those robes we wear no adornments, believing the attainment of knowledge is the greatest possession toward which one can aspire. Some few, though, trim the hems of their gowns with fur. They allege this is for warmth. I suspect vanity to be a greater force.]

In Tarsis seamstresses wear no aprons at all, while baker boys deliver their masters' goods wearing brightly colored cloths tied tightly around their heads so they look like pirates come in from the sea. In Solace, no matter if the world turns in peace or rocks in calamity, the baker boys each wear a feather in their square, billed caps. The feathers are blue and green and brown and golden, all the way to white. The color announces how far the boy is from the end of his apprenticeship. The proximity of Solace to the Plainsfolk who trade these around the countryside ensures a good supply of such feathers.

Some say the peculiarity of whirling fashion among humans is a reflection of their short lives, the mad dash to see and taste and feel everything before the candle is burned to the nub and they slip into the darkness of death. Perhaps, and perhaps it is that many humans live in those parts of Krynn where flax is easily grown, the mulberry orchards are filled with silkworm nests, the meadows are fat with fleecy sheep, and the forests teem with game whose pelts are readily obtained.

It cannot be said that the realm of the gnomes, the subterranean tinkers' warrens, the noisy villages, or the great halls of Mt. Nevermind are dire places, but they are dangerous for a human or elf or dwarf who doesn't know the thirty-six other ways to say "Watch out!" The places where gnomes live are filled with whirling things, exploding things, erupting things, flying things, falling things, and things that, though perhaps unintentionally, are as apt to kill a person as a well-flown arrow.

The reader will understand if no one not a gnome has undertaken a survey of the clothing and fashions among these industrious, tinkeringchangingadaptingfixingimprovingtweakingbuilding… folk. It can be said, by account of those who have had recent experience with gnomes (mostly the people of Solamnia, denizens of the southern part of that land and those who live on Gunthar and who yet maintain trading relations with the gnomes) that as far as what they put on their backs and how they feel about it, little has changed for the tinker folk since the Chaos War and the coming of the dragons. Men or women, gnomes have never had much sense of what they are wearing, caring only that the trousers are warm when they need warmth, the shirts are cool when they need coolness, the leather aprons are thick, and the pockets on anything they wear are frequent, deep, and easily able to bear the weight of the tool straps gnomes clip to everything. From collar, from belt, from pocket, hem, and sleeve, you will always see a gnome's tool strap dangling. Knights go clanging into battle, their armor clanking, their ringed mail jingling, their greaves creaking; you will always know a knight by the song of his gear. The same can be said about gnomes on the way to work, for they rattle with tools and half-made gadgets, with rulers and tape measures and hammers and tongs and notebooks and pincers and pencils and… well, you see how it is with a gnome. No sense of fashion at all, but he can always put his hand on the tool he needs, wherever he is, eventually. [Though rumor has reached the library of ail industrious gnome who attempted to invent steam-powered self-cleaning boots with a built-in cooling mechanism for walking on hot lava.]

In Hylo, that forested land near to Ergoth and across the water from the lands of the blue dragon Khellendros, the kender live, just about all of them who aren't at the moment, indulging bouts of wanderlust. Those who once dwelt in Kendermore fled west when Malys, the red dragon, came, and they are as prosperous there as they are anywhere, but they often recall their lost homelands and fall into what kender can only call the Affliction: a deep sorrow until now unknown to their kind. Whether afflicted or not, the kender have not lost their absurd sense of style. In Hylo they dress for the seasons, having ample opportunity to obtain wool and silk and cotton and leather from those who trade with the new kender homeland. ["Trade," of course, is a relative term where kender are concerned. Any merchant who enters the land of the kender must allow for inventory shrinkage in the range of seventy-five to eighty percent.] The wilder the colors, the more intense the patterns of the materials of a kender's clothing, the happier he or she is. Hats and scarves of flowered silk, leggings of red wool and a shirt of blue all covered by a bilious green jacket—these are kender-wear.

Since the coming of the great dragons, we have lost our gods, our old ways, the very shape of our lands and the old familiar climates. We have, as well, lost the oldest race ever to live among us, the Irda. As fair as the gods themselves, so it is said about these folk, as wise and witty and prone to deep-thinking. They axe gone now, all of them killed in the days before the Chaos War. What do they wear now, but the sighs of those who regret their passing? Ah, the Irda…

And so, clothed in memory and sighs, as are the lost Irda now, or in furs and wool, in samite and damasked silk, roughly clad or finely dressed, we make our way in Krynn, the humans turning to fashion's giddy whim, but none of us beyond the will to wear our finery, as the wise mage said, "to signal to others who we are, perhaps who we believe we are. Or, who we wish the world around to think we are."