Medieval Clothing -- myArmoury.com

Craig Peters · Posted: Sat 17 Sep, 2011 10:17 am Post subject: Medieval Clothing

Where can one find good quality medieval clothing online these days? I know about Revival Clothing; however, after hearing what happened to Christian Tobler et al, I do not wish to support Revival Clothing. I have seen Historic Enterprises as well, although I'm not too sure just how good they are. My area of interest is the 12th century.

Who else is out there that I am not aware of?

Ian S LaSpina · Posted: Sat 17 Sep, 2011 10:47 am Post subject: Re: Medieval Clothing

Mike Capanelli · Posted: Sat 17 Sep, 2011 10:50 am Post subject:

Your confusing revivalclothing.com with revival.us Christian Tobler and Greg Mele are involved with revival clothing, Brian Price has nothing to do with that company. He owns revival.us You can read revival clothing's about us page RIGHT HERE to see whom runs that company.

Craig Peters · Posted: Sat 17 Sep, 2011 10:51 am Post subject: Re: Medieval Clothing

Ian S LaSpina · Posted: Sat 17 Sep, 2011 10:59 am Post subject:

One other thing that's nice about Historic Enterprises, is they're very up front with the level of historical accuracy associated with a particular garment or piece. Just about every product has a historical accuracy rating, and they will go into specifics as to whether or not a garment is an exact reproduction of an extant piece, or if it's based on contemporary artwork etc etc... Historic Enterprises is also the home of the armorer Jeff Hedgecock, also coordinator of the yearly Tournament of the Phoenix, and his work is very well known and respected.

Anders Kramer · Posted: Sat 17 Sep, 2011 11:01 am Post subject:

www.medievaldesign.com

Joe Fults · Posted: Sat 17 Sep, 2011 11:35 am Post subject:

I've been happy with clothing from Revival Clothing, Historic Enterprises, and Matuls.

Ian S LaSpina · Posted: Sat 17 Sep, 2011 12:59 pm Post subject:

Jonathon Janusz · Posted: Sat 17 Sep, 2011 5:11 pm Post subject:

For what it is worth, Revival clothing stuff I've had the chance to check out (through others' purchases) is well made and the prices are very reasonable, and Doug's work in improving their leather goods line has done well for them. Off the peg in the US, they are an excellent option.

Historic Enterprises (Black Swan Designs is their soft goods division) is well researched and constructed stuff, and they have been my go-to for clothing primarily because they also offer custom tailoring services. As point of note, a few years back I had I think about a week's worth of full suits of clothes made up - about a third being off the rack, about half being stock designs made to measurements I provided, and the last bit being one-off articles customized for particular purposes based on conversations/emails we exchanged to complete specific suits of clothes. Moreover, they were even glad to use fabric I provided and shipped in to their shop to complete some of the commission. As long as you don't catch them either at our around the time of a major event, or stocking up for one, turnaround on custom work is very good, and they have done very well for folks in my parts getting stock items out in a rush to make very tight deadlines.

In short, if I want a fairly broad and bread-and-butter kind of selection, at a good price, in stock (as in particular to outfit a large troupe cost effectively and quickly), I would call the folks at Revival. As I have grown more finicky in my old age, ( Wink

), if I'm not getting stuff fitted directly to my body (and I would be lying if I hadn't thought at least once about the costs involved in taking a flight to California to do just that), Gwen and crew at HE/BSD are my shop of choice.

Craig Peters · Posted: Mon 19 Sep, 2011 11:40 am Post subject:

I have a question. I have noticed that Revival Clothing sells undertunics along with their supertunics. What I am wondering is how common undertunics were, particularly in the 12th century. I have seen only a few images of clothing from this period that unambiguously depict some sort of undertunic. It seems that, far more often, men wore a single overtunic or bliaut with chausses and braies underneath. The relatively few scholarly webpages I have found online talking about medieval clothing suggest that a chemise, or some sort of shirt, would have been worn as underwear. Whether this chemise is somewhat similar to a modern shirt in length, or far more like an undertunic is not clear to me.

Mikael Ranelius · Posted: Mon 19 Sep, 2011 4:24 pm Post subject:

Craig Peters · Posted: Mon 19 Sep, 2011 8:47 pm Post subject:

Mikael Ranelius · Posted: Tue 20 Sep, 2011 4:42 am Post subject:

I'd say that the king is wearing a bliaut on top of a long (probably silk) tunic/cote, a garment that seems to have been refered to as a chainse in France. If one wishes to call it an undertunic that's fine with me, but one should keep in mind that the main garment and the outer garment were generally worn together during the middle ages.