Costumes For Historical Reenactment

Costumes for historical reenactment can be found online, but in very few places.

One of the top places to find authentic reenactment costumes is eBay. I’m sure that sounds strange, and it’s true that you’ll have to weed through a lot of cheap halloween costumes and club wear (really, who actually believes that a pvc buckled corselet qualifies as “renaissance” or “medieval”?), but many historical reenactors just love to make garb and don’t have use for 15 different houppelandes. Some do have their own shops on eBay, but most only want to sell 1 or 2 items at a time, and don’t want the hassle of buying, building, and maintaining a website shop for so little inventory.


There are other places to find authentic historical costumes as well. For renaissance buffs, VirtualFaire.com lists garb and costume makers’ websites, the Wenches Guild (wench.org) has a classifieds section, and I assume the Rogues Guild website does as well.

For medieval reenactors, SCA.org lists many online shops. In fact, any historical reenactment group of a certain size will likely list websites and catalogs that can service your favorite period.

In addition to this, searching online for “your time period costumes” or “your time period clothing” will usually turn up a few shops, as well as many resources on how to make your own garb.

If you prefer to make your own costumes for historical reenactment, there are basic clothing pattern makers such as Simplicity, Butterick, and McCalls, which don’t make historically accurate patterns, but which are pretty close if you make a few adjustments. There are a few pattern makers who sell properly researched and documented costume patterns, but keep in mind that these will not be on sale at JoAnns for $1. If memory serves correctly, the historically accurate reenactment costume patterns generally run between $10 and $30. Still, it’s a small investment compared to hiring someone to make garb for you, or purchasing court garb.

I do have one word of warning for you, however. When searching for costumes for historical reenactment, make sure that you allow plenty of time for window shopping. It’s hard to stop looking!