Clothing Suggestions
Clothing Suggestions for European style Renaissance garb
You may wish to dress in any culture’s clothing appropriate to the time period 400 –1700 ad. Clothes that you may have lingering in your closet that generally pass as faire-like include:
- Natural leather shoes, boots, and sandals
- Blousy shirts in natural colors
- Natural leather vests
- Blousy dresses in natural colors
- Snug fitting pants without pockets if possible
Women a plain-colored long skirt, under skirt and peasant-type blouse will serve. A length of cloth, such as a dishtowel, can make a veil. A hat or snood will hide modern hair. Long hair is generally braided.
Men wear plain trousers (not jeans), and a peasant-style shirt that is not tucked in. A cloak, even one made of a blanket, can hide modern clothes. Plain black slippers or plain boots and a jerkin (vest), and a hat.
Girls might wear a long loose colored dress (to her ankles), with another long dress or robe over it. Belted at the waist. She might carry a small bag, keys, and a knife hanging from her belt. She could wear leather boots, or sandals.
Boys might wear a big single colored t-shirt (it should reach to his knees), belted at the waist, with colored tights under it (unless it is hot!) and leather shoes or boots (not sneakers)
Clothing always reflected the social status of the wearer. There would be no doubt in one's mind about picking out the nobility in any crowd. Clothing was a direct indication of wealth. The cost of clothing was related to the type of fabric and the color. Purple dye was extracted by crushing thousands of tiny sea snails; similarly, crimson dye was obtained by crushing a certain type of beetle. Processed fabrics such as velvet or corduroy were costly, as were satins and other fine weaves. Therefore most peasants wore plain clothing, gray, brown and white.
Cotton was expensive and uncommon before the rise of the cotton gin. Cotton was an expensive fabric up till the 1800s. Flax and wool were the more common fibers. Flax (from a plant called flax) is made into linen, which while expensive now, wasn't when it was homespun. Wool yarn became wool fabric of all weights, including tweed, which was woven wool fabric that had been beaten on one side while wet to form a wooly, wind-proof material. Socks or stockings were knitted luxury items in summer, but very necessary in winter.
Leather goods made from deer, elk, and other hides, was used in battle garments as well as shoes, vests, shields. Rope was a basic part of clothing, holding up the pants, cinching the skirts, and securing sandals or shoes.
Men and women wore hats or hair coverings regularly -a wool cloak or hood, a simple white cotton veil, a wool cap, etc. Hair coverings of all kinds not only kept the elements off your head, but kept the critters in your hair from falling in your food. Long hair was usually braided.