Spring is slowly inching its way forward here in the northern hemisphere, and you know what that means. Before you know it, Ren Faire season will be upon us! Because of this realization, I’ve been thinking about historical costumes a lot more than usual, and I thought maybe the My Disguises audience would like to think about it too.
Ren Faires are full of the fun and fantastical costumes, which is definitely awesome in its own right. They just wouldn’t be the same without all the fairies, elves, and pirates. But today I’m going to address the other side–like I said, historical costumes. A lot of people would like to wear more historically accurate costumes, but they don’t know where to start and they don’t know the facts, so they just get costumes that look like costumes they saw in some movie sometime.
Free hint: Movies are basically never the best resource for historically accurate costumes. Of course, if you want to dress up like the characters, that’s fine, and I won’t complain. Film costumes are pretty, after all!
When it comes down to trying to create accurate period costumes, there are two basic resources available. They both have their pros and cons, and they both require a certain amount of thought and discernment from the researcher, but until someone invents time travel, it’s simply the best we can do.
The first resource is extant pieces of clothing. These are actual pieces of clothing from the Middle Ages that have survived, at least partially, and have now been excavated, preserved, and studied. Learning about these articles is about as close as we can get to the real thing. (Well, they are the real thing). These ancient pieces of clothing, while there are not many of them, can tell us generally about the way clothing was constructed and the types of fabric that were used. Some of the luckier finds involve entire outfits found on bodies, which tell us how clothing was worn, what pieces were worn together, and how the clothing was different between the genders.
On the other hand, a lot of the study that has been done on these pieces amounts to mostly speculation. Some of the “clothing” that have been found, were really just mostly-rotted scraps of fabric, and the researchers just had to guess what piece of clothing it might have been, based on where it was found in relation to a body (if there was a body nearby at all!) and if there was any indication of a seam or hem on the scrap of fabric. Furthermore, dating the clothing is done with carbon-14 dating methods, which is not very exact.
As you can see, there is a lot of guesswork involved when dealing with extant pieces of clothing. But at the same time, the piece of clothing can tell us everything about itself, even if we have to guess about its context.
But enough blathering about that! Here are some useful websites that deal with studying extant pieces from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Marc Carlson’s “Some Clothing of the Middle Ages”. The site includes tons of information on extant pieces of clothing, categorized by type of clothing. There are diagrams of the clothing, measurements of the pieces, if they were found with a body or other pieces of clothing, what fabrics they were, and what time period they were probably from. He also has an extensive bibliography which can lead you to more information, if you can get your hands on the books.
Viking Resources for the Re-Enactor is one of the more comprehensive sites I’ve found addressing Viking clothing. Unfortunately it has a lot more words than images, but the descriptions are pretty clear, and it should give you a pretty good idea of what the Vikings wore in regards to entire outfits. On that same subject, this PDF addresses in detail the apron-dress of Viking women, including some clear and useful information on what is called the Hedeby (or Haithabu) fragment, a piece of cloth which is believed to have originally been an apron-dress.
Reconstructing History: Articles is another good resource from a researcher who regularly deals with extant pieces of clothing. Many of the articles will go into detail and give diagrams for the construction of the piece. She also has tons of other information about medieval and Renaissance clothing.
The other resource is historical art. Art previous to the middle ages is so rare and stylized that we won’t even get into it. Medieval art is not very detailed when it comes to drawing the clothing, so it takes a fair amount of interpretation. This is why it’s useful to take information both from the paintings and from the extant pieces, to try to figure out what the clothing was really like. Paintings do give a certain amount of context, so you can see what types of clothing were worn in what types of situations, and that kind of thing.
Art was more advanced in the Renaissance, so there are plenty of portraits with heavy detailing, which makes it easier to see how the clothing was constructed and decorated.
The thing to keep in mind, when looking at historical art, is that they might not be entirely realistic. You know how, if you’re going to go get a formal portrait taken of yourself, you wear nicer clothing than usual? They definitely did that back then too; so the super fancy dresses covered with beads and pearls was probably not what they wore every day. Furthermore, there’s a certain amount of symbolism put into the art so that illiterate people could identify the subjects. In medieval art, saints and royalty were depicted wearing certain types of clothing so that they could be identified as such, whether or not they actually wore such things in real life.
To get the most complete idea of what historical clothing was actually like, it’s best to do research on extant pieces and on the art, and then figure out how the two fit together.
As far as actual resources go, a good bet is to go to your local library and see if they have books about medieval or Renaissance art. You know, the huge ones with lots of pictures. But there is also a fair amount of information on the web.
Tudor England has many scans of portraits of the Tudor royal family–Henry Tudor, Henry VIII and his wives, Elizabeth I and her siblings, and several others. Each portrait is coupled with a fair amount of commentary regarding the history of the portrait and the subjects.
Artcyclopedia is a good starting point for finding online galleries of historical art. And in that vein, Wikipedia is also good for finding threads that will lead to more information. You can start by searching through the History of Clothing, or you can look up portraits of nobles, or search for historical artists, and find information to go from there.
A Milanese Tailor’s Handbook is an awesome resource for Tudor clothing. This site is an online copy of a fashion book written in the 1500s. It’s hard to get more authentic than that. There are other similar books (not available in an online format). The most popular ones are Patterns of Fashion by Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d by Janet Arnold, and Tailor’s Pattern Book 1589.
This kind of research should give you enough information to make or assemble something that looks pretty accurate. If you’re not into sewing, it’s just a matter of creatively putting together the right pieces of clothing to create the right look. If you are into sewing, there are plenty of costume patterns available. If you want patterns that are truly authentic to period, I would recommend Reconstructing History and Margo Anderson’s Historic Costume Patterns.
Good luck! And have fun at the Ren Faire! I know I will.
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