So you are attending your first Renaissance faire and you want to look the part? These local festivals, which focus on food, drink and activities prior to the discovery of the New World, can be entertaining and educational for the entire family. Festival-goers often dress up in costumes reminiscent of the time. This post will offer guidance on how to choose the right era-appropriate clothes. It will include tips on researching the time period, finding clothing you own that fits the theme and where to buy appropriate costumes.

Do Your Research

What to Wear to a Renaissance FaireA lot of the fun of a Renaissance faire is learning about life in the Middle Ages. Watch some movies featuring this time period for inspiration — any of the films about Robin Hood have interesting costumes — and look for photos on the Internet. Picture-sharing sites like Pinterest and Flickr will have lots of images people have uploaded of their own Renaissance Faire costumes, as well as drawings and patterns for other costumes.

Of course, there’s no band of Renaissance faire police who will tell you that your costume is incorrect, but it’s fairly easy to get an accurate costume quickly, as you’ll see when you check out Halloween costumes for adults. If you enjoy the costume search, as many do, you can also adapt an existing costume by adding details you’ve gleaned in your research, or make your own costume from scratch.

To go completely authentic, beware of common anachronisms like zippers and other fabric fasteners that hadn’t been invented at that time. This becomes quite difficult when you start looking for footwear, but it’s not impossible.

Look in Your Own Closet

It’s possible that some of the clothes you already own can be adapted to be used for your costume. Because a lot of medieval clothing features layers, you may be able to get away with some of your normal clothing for the under garments.

For example, while Renaissance ladies wouldn’t have had the benefit of elasticized fabrics, leggings and tights work as well under dresses now as their more baggy stockings would have 600 years ago. For men, a white T-shirt might be just the thing the village soldier would want under his doublet, and a jerkin could possibly be substituted by a modern suit vest, if it is made out of a fancy fabric.

Go through your existing wardrobe with an eye for what could be paired with something more elaborate to make a statement at a Renaissance faire. However, before you pick out anything, it’s a good idea to look at local weather patterns for the date of the festival. If it usually rains on that particular weekend, don’t wear the filmy white nightgown with just a vest over it. And, if it’s usually a scorcher, you won’t want to be wearing your great-aunt’s mink stole repurposed into a king’s robe.

Where to Buy

If your closet isn’t providing you with anything more charming than your 1980s frosted jeans, you may need to buy your whole ensemble. This makes sense anyway, if you think that you’ll be attending more Renaissance faires in the future.

Certain online stores have an excellent array of medieval-style clothing and costumes. You’ll want to make sure you get something of higher quality to ensure it will last the entire Renaissance faire weekend.

You can also ferret out some suitable festival garb and accessories in a normal department store or at a local thrift store. Search out items without too many printed patterns on them, especially ones made out of natural fabrics, such as linen, silk, cotton or wool. Distinguish metal prints vs acrylic prints. Velvet-and-lace objects are usually a good bet, too, if you’re hoping to represent the landed aristocracy. Rich folk would have had more money to pay for expensive blue, purple, and red dyes, so you might wear clothes of those colors. Commoners of the time period probably wouldn’t have had the resources to make very colorful clothing, so browns, ivories, muted greens, and grays are popular hues for the costumes of the peasantry.

Princess Image Photo credit: anoldent / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

About the Author: Yolanda Reyes is a fashion designer who is fascinated by American subcultures and the costumes they wear. She started making her own dress-up clothes when she was a child and hasn’t stopped.

Disclosure:  This is a partnered post.