“Something to make a hole and something to pull through it. Before there is woven cloth of spun thread, there are sewn hides and bundled plants and worked bark”
“When you are looking at your world, what do the people wear?”
“More than the bow and arrows, more than the short-bladed flint knife, more than the very latest thing, the copper ax — it’s the sewing kit and what it means that anchors Otzi’s technology level”
“Technology can be extremely localized, and people use their local textiles and technology! Who has access to it? Who uses it? Who holds its secrets? Is it held by artisan-priests? Controlled by the state? Passed down through family lines? What does that imply about family and social structure? What wealth is connected to which parts of producing thread?”
“How do people get into and out of their clothes?”
“Do people grow and spin and weave and dye and sew their own clothing, or is some part of that work done by other people? What does that imply about craft specialization and division of labor? What are all of the attendant technologies and tools people doing those tasks would need? It’s advantageous to have all the steps of textile manufacturing at any scale happen close together — what else needs to be nearby to ensure the well-being of the people?”
“What are the social rules around each part of this process? Who spins, who weaves, who sews? Who is tending the fields? Who does the harvesting?”
“Also consider how that technology impacts the entire system. Manufacturing silk was a state secret for 4000 years; the supremacy of cotton was built on slavery; hemp was everywhere in the age of sail then vilified by the war on “the devil’s weed”, and is now slowly transitioning from the high-end luxury fabric it was in 2000 back to a regular use fabric again; synthetics developed alongside the chemical industry.”
“What are the realities vs the perceptions of living in different places? How does that create friction? How do people interact with different technologies, ideas, or products based on this fricion? What signifiers do people have in their clothing about where they consider “home”?”
“How do the people involved in textile production, from planting crops or moving animals through wearing and perhaps marketing the finished clothing, get where they need to go? What paths from the grazing grounds to the river where the fibers are washed become roads with rest stops, homes, and businesses connected to the textile process?”
“Where do you put the smelly parts of textile production? How easy is it to get raw materials to a mill, milled fiber to a spinnery, thread to a weavery, fabric to someone who can cut it and sew it”
“Rivers always come first — the more navigable they are, the more important they become and the more they shape all human life along their banks. Does the river flood gently and predictably or violently and unpredictably? What does that mean for the industry and culture along the way? How is that reflected in what the people wear?”
“Roads come next, and refer to networks of trade and travel as well as actual overland routes. Who travels? What do they wear? How do they signal, from a safe distance, that they are both worth allowing to pass and not a threat worth confronting or a target worth accosting? Why do they travel? Where do they stop along the way? How do they view travelers to their home area?”
“Railroads show up to follow rivers, climb hills, or move freight starting in about 200 CE.”
“A need to invent railroads points to a need to support mass production — what does that look like in your world? What are they making and moving and why?”
“Where are the struggles over land use? Who controls the access to travel? Who can afford to travel? How often?”