Overview
Median dress matters far beyond Media, because it is the name Greek writers gave to the trousered riding costume of the Iranian plateau generally — and because the Persians adopted it. Herodotus says so directly: the Persians took Median dress, judging it finer than their own. A garment that arrives as practical horseman’s kit and ends as the clothing of an imperial court is unusual, and this is the clearest ancient case of it.
Key garments and style
The ensemble is cut and sewn throughout: trousers gathered at the ankle, a sleeved tunic belted at the waist, soft shoes, and a round felt cap. Over it goes the kandys, a sleeved coat worn hanging from the shoulders with the arms not put through — a way of wearing a coat that Greek observers found worth remarking on and that Persian art shows repeatedly. Weapons belong to the outfit: the short akinakes dagger at the hip, and the combined bow-and-quiver case.
The Persepolis reliefs set the two systems side by side. Delegations and guards in Median trousers and cap alternate with figures in the long, heavily pleated Persian court robe, and the contrast is the point — the empire displayed itself as containing both.
One caution belongs on any page about the Medes. Archaeology from Media itself is thin, and nearly all the images called Median were carved by Persians afterwards; even the existence of a unified Median empire is argued over. What is secure is the costume, not the state.
Transition
Under the Achaemenids the riding dress continued as practical and military wear while the pleated robe served ceremony, and the trousered outfit went on being the marker of the East in Greek eyes for the next thousand years.