[Nate C.]

I know the answer to this question has to be simple, but I've gotta ask anyway.

What on earth is that goofy looking skirt thing?!?!
It looks like the good king Henry VIII was going too fast, lost control, and vaulted through time and an old sheet metal shack. Either that or they found Hawaii earlier than I thought .



Henry VIII, Milanese armor, 1514 (from Therion Arms website)

[Allan Senefelder]

Nate its callet a tonlet . It was fashionable in the first third of the 16th century and simply mimicked the civilian fashion of the day ( if you look at period illustarions you'll notice the fabric garments look like this ) . The center of the metal skirting could be removed ( held in place by sneck hooks ) if the user was going to be on horse back . The style was also called
armour with bases ( refering to its correlary in civilain fashion ) .

[David Quivey]

once again, period armour emulates (and with success!) period fashion, much to the amusment of us modern folks

[Matthew Kelty]

In case there are any aspiring Fashionistas out there, the name of the garment this Armor emulates is a Woffenroch (Voff-en-rock), it's a German War Coat. It found it's way into fashion from the German Landsknechts, many of which found employment with Henry. You'll also find Italian Zimarra's with a similar skirt arrangement, and they slid out of fashion by the 1540's or so.

[Ruel A. Macaraeg]

Thanks Matthew; I actually write a fashion column, so that's good to know. Woffenroch would apparently be Waffenrock lit. 'weapon/war skirt' in modern German.