Overview
Elam occupied the lowlands of south-western Iran for some two thousand years, in constant contact with Mesopotamia, and its dress reads as a variant of the Mesopotamian tradition rather than an Iranian one. It is known almost entirely from images — reliefs, statues, cylinder seals and cast bronzes — because textiles do not survive in that climate.
Key garments and style
The earliest garment shown is the tufted woollen wrap of the kaunakes type shared with Sumer, its surface built from overlapping tufts or flounces. Later Elamite dress moves to smoother cloth with heavy fringed borders and to tiered, wrapped garments, worn with elaborately dressed hair and substantial jewellery.
The outstanding single witness is the bronze statue of Queen Napir-Asu from Susa, cast around the fourteenth century BC and weighing well over a tonne: it preserves a patterned, fringed gown and a fringed shawl in detail no drawing could supply. Elamite reliefs also record long braided hair and beards, and the round caps worn by attendants.
Weaving mattered enough to be recorded administratively, and Susa’s texts include the accounting of wool and cloth that any Mesopotamian palace kept.
Transition
The rise of the Medes and Persians brought the northern riding wardrobe — trousers, a sleeved coat, boots — into the region, and Elamite dress appears in Achaemenid art as one of the styles the empire absorbed, worn by delegations on the Persepolis reliefs.