Historical costumes and historical clothing are arguably the largest section of the costume industry. After all, everything from 90’s preps to cave dweller animal skins fit into that single category.

Within the larger grouping of historical costumes come many more levels. Consider Napoleonic costumes and clothing, 1920’s flapper costumes, Renaissance fair dresses, suits of armor, pioneer clothing, Pilgrim costumes, Native American costumes, aboriginal tribe costumes, and even J-Lo’s bare-all dress from just a few years ago. I hear that the Queen Boadicea costumes (ancient Celtic tribal queen) are quite popular in Britain, and even Star Trek costumes might be considered historical or reenactment clothing since it represents an earlier time in American history, despite the fact that the show takes place far in the future.

Of course, you’ll have a reason that you want historical clothing. If you’re attending a Renaissance festival, the choices are much more varied than, say, Civil War reenactment clothing. A Roaring 20’s party will not be a suitable home for Wild West costumes. If your goal is to be as authentic as possible, your choices are limited. Costume shops are not known for high quality goods, nor are they known for their historical authenticity. Generally speaking, these shops, and popular pattern brands such as Butterick’s, McCall’s, and Simplicity only research the actual historical clothing as far as they need to to make a reasonable semblance for plays and parties. Reenactment groups generally hold much stricter requirements for clothing that the members wear to events.
For your reenactment clothing to be as historically accurate as possible, you’ll need to do your own research or copy off of a known authority. Many reenactors make their own reenactment costumes at least in the beginning. Often more items will be purchased at these events from others who make the clothing and do their own research.
Surprisingly, eBay can be a wonderful place to find these costumes, and often at a good price. Since reenactors who can sew often are more excited about making the clothing than they are about wearing them, brand new or gently used items are often placed up for sale there, or offered directly at events. The more enthusiastic sewers often launch a website offering custom designs, but will many times offer their historical clothes on eBay and other e-commerce sites as a way of advertising.
Reenactment clothes are often quite easy to make. Consider medieval clothing- generally speaking, you can simply cut out two T-shaped pieces of fabric and sew them together. It’s about as simple as it gets, and since it’s considered a costume by most people, no one will care if it’s not sewn beautifully as long as it’s functional.

This is the first post on this historical reenactment clothing site. Scrolling through the pages and posts here will show you a wide variety of historical reenactment costumes to buy or make.