the skirt is part of the chiton and the rest a separate garment.[133] It will be safer, therefore, in considering the different garments which constitute the dress, to leave the question of colour out of account altogether, and to base our arguments only on their form. Many who maintain that the skirt is part of the chiton, are of the opinion that the upper garment is the ordinary himation with a small overfold, fastened on the shoulder and down the arm. Lechat supposes that the upper edge is taken up and drawn from beneath and folded over on itself, so as to form a sort of thick pad at the top, and he suggests that the pleats were folded before the cloak was put on, and perhaps even ironed; but this arrangement would not produce the vertical folds which we find in almost all the statues. [132] Cp. _Jahrbuch_, 1893; Arch. Anz., H. 519; Winter. [133] Another possibility which suggests itself is that the sculptor may not have painted the statue himself, but may have handed it over to a painter who did not understand how the drapery was constituted. Kalkmann[134] calls the garment a “stilisirte himation,” and suggests that the vertical lines are continued round the figure because the artist had great difficulty in representing the transition between the vertical folds which hang down from the arm and the horizontal ones of the overfold. This explanation, however, does not account for the frill-like edge which appears at the top of the himation. Professor Baldwin Brown[135] has published some good photographs of a model draped in this Ionian himation, but has not given a very full or satisfactory explanation of how the effect was produced. He says that the secret of the dress is that “the upper edge of it, with all the folds, is tightly rolled over so that it is shortened in the front, while at the same time the folds are kept in their places.” He admits that the folds will only keep in place on a “motionless wearer of imperturbable patience,” and therefore supposes that the dress was evolved for use on the wooden xoana. It seems unlikely that a special dress of such an elaborate nature should have been evolved to drape these early wooden images, and there is no reason to suppose that the series of Acropolis statues are merely reproductions of such images. They appear much rather to represent the grand Athenian ladies who dedicated themselves symbolically to their patron goddess by setting up statues of themselves in her honour. Since the statues were probably intended to be set up permanently in a conspicuous place, it is natural that the votaries would like to see themselves appearing in their best clothes. [134] _Jahrbuch_, xi. [135] _How Greek Women Dressed._