Togas

Togas: Costuming Romans
Every male Roman citizen was entitled to wear a toga. The toga will be part of Pilate's costume, worn over a long white short-sleeved tunic. Boys' togas had a narrow band of purple on the outer edge; men's were plain white tropical weight wool except for direct representatives of the imperial government (such as Pilate). Pilate's toga will have a four-inch band of purple on the outer edge. (The tunic of First UMC's Pilate imitates some illustrations with a matching purple band down the center of the front. ) Toga instructions: To make a toga, measure your wearer from ankle to left shoulder, down around the right hip, up to the left shoulder again and down in back to the ankle. This is how the toga will be draped. (Women wore a rectangular garment in a similar drape.)
Measure out the length you need (the length you just measured on the wearer) on your fabric of light white "wool-look" fabric. Use a string to lay out a smooth curve from one end to the other, as shown.
For a citizen's toga, hem. For Pilate's toga, cut a lightweight purple fabric into bias strips 5 inches wide. Join the bias strips as usual to make one long strip. Then sew the strip along the curved edge of the toga. Hem the bias strip and the straight edge of the toga. Drape it on your wearer. One corner falls in front of the left ankle; from there drape up to the shoulder, down around the right hip, up across the front and over the left shoulder again to hang down the back. At the shoulder, pleat each layer separately so that the fabric drapes gracefully and the outside edge hangs about to the elbow. Pin. Sew about two inches of the pleat, lengthwise (not across the pleat) so that each pleat hides the stitching of the one before and the pleats lie on top of the garment. Romans often used bar pins to hold cloaks and possibly togas, but in the absence of such jewelry, you will need to safety pin the toga at the shoulder, from the underside, through all 3 layers (hiding the pin under a pleat) to keep it in place.