How to Buy Viking Clothes (and What to Avoid!)

[Music] hello welcome back jimmy here after a bit of a delay because my phd has been getting pretty heavy at the end of this year and i've got some tight deadlines so thank you all for bearing with me those guys of you who've been waiting for this video thank you very much to everybody who subscribed between the last video and this one and hello to you all thank you to joseph for your very generous coffee donation i have a coffee link in the description and in my banner on my home page in case anyone wants to uh support the channel financially but it is of course more than enough for you guys to just be here watching my videos and leaving lovely comments and liking the videos that is always such a lovely thing to wake up to is when uh all of my north american viewers and subscribers have seen my videos and left lovely comments so thank you guys so much for giving me such nice stuff to wake up to uh on a cold drab scottish december morning today we're gonna have a little look at preparing you guys for the minefield that is buying viking clothing online there are dozens in fact i could probably say hundreds without exaggerating of websites out there that claim to sell authentic period appropriate viking clothing 99 of which is not period appropriate in some way or another be it the materials that they're made from the construction methods used or just everything about them there's an awful lot of guff out there there's so much guff that i'm going to need to have a cup of tea with me for this video so let us begin i know it says coffee it's tea believe me stone cold 3 16. so let's start with some of the basic stuff that you might want to buy online instead of making yourself or getting a friendly craftsman to make for you some of the most expensive stuff you can buy in reenactment is footwear if you need a decent pair of shoes to keep your feet dry that look good and are made to period appropriate methods that could set you back a pretty penny some pairs of shoes that are made painstakingly using period authentic tools and equipment can cost more than 200 pounds that's about 350 american dollars or something like that i think so if you don't want to spend 200 quid on a pair of shoes what are some of the things you need to look out for well there is always the temptation to get the cheapest pair of shoes or boots that you can find after all if this is for reenactment where you're only going to be wearing it once or twice a month during the reenactment season maybe a little bit more frequently if you do any longer events but the problem with that is the cheapest boots and shoes out there are usually the worst looking and the worst made so don't go for the cheapest if you need to save up a little bit if it takes you a little longer to get these boots i highly highly recommend that you do you will probably end up spending more on cheap footwear being replaced than you would on a slightly more expensive pair of boots have a look at this pair this is just from googling the term viking boots now on the surface they look like a nice pair of boots they look like they're made of good leather they look securely built and they've got nice thick soles however they are not period appropriate at all they are machine sewn they've got welted soles they've got a rubber artificial looking sole at least and they've got those toggles now viking footwear did use toggles in fact here is a viking shoe from york with toggles on it this is a real viking shoe what it doesn't have is these fun spiral looking things going all the way around the boot that is pure glamour pure fantasy footwear these boots equally are totally and utterly inappropriate now yes we do see shoes from the viking period with these kind of cutouts in the leather for drawstrings here's a pair from ireland but what they don't have is these modern toe boxes that look like ugg boots they don't have these weird thick welted soles and they don't then combine that with shin length toggles and what looks like waist belts just sewn onto the top so be very careful both of these came with descriptions that said authentic viking reenactment footwear neither of these are authentic viking reenactment footwear these are effectively costumes for a fancy dress party the other thing that you want to do is be careful of footwear inspired by tv you guys have all seen this picture if you've been on my channel for a little while this is ragnar grumpy face and there are companies out there that sell replicas of these boots well they sell what they call replicas of these boots this is a pair of boots based on those boots that you just saw and they're really bad guys it looks like black faux leather bandages pop riveted together now not only do these look guff these look really uncomfortable to wear these are not a well-made pair of boots these are weird leather strips just roughly put together they're going to fall apart pretty quickly so what should you be looking for in terms of viking shoes well if this is your first pair of viking shoes then i advise simplicity you don't need toggles you don't need pointy feet you don't need seams everywhere you don't need sea boots that come up to your ank to come up to your carbs a decent pair of plain turn shoes like these will be fine you can pick these up pretty cheaply i've picked up shoes similar to these for 20 to 30 pounds before now and they've lasted several years of hard use in reenactment all over the uk get a simple pair of leather shoes they should be a naturally tanned leather so something like a vegetable tanned leather brain tanned leather or even alum tanned leather in some places all of that can be appropriate vegetable tanned leather is generally something that you look for when you're looking for reenactment leather so a nice pair of decent vegetable tanned shoes simple enough looking turn shoes preferably if they're machine stitched don't worry about that as long as it's not obvious that they have these very modern welted soles that's not technology that was available in the viking period they didn't make their shoes this way they made them by stitching the leather inside out and then turning it the right way around so you've got a nice tight seam if you looked at my how to make irish shoes video you'll see me trying my best to do a turn shoe so look for that look for a nice simple pair of shoes it's all you need it's all you need if you want something a little bit more complicated a little bit more fancy look at some of the museums for the people that you're reenacting so if you're reenacting scandinavian vikings you get shoots like this which are amazing places like the national museum in denmark and the national museum in norway and some of the viking museums have viking shoes york has viking shoes as well that are found in an anglo-scandinavian context we have plenty of real-life viking shoes for you to look at at these museum sites see if the shoes that you're thinking of buying look like the viking shoes okay that is my main thing my main tip is make sure your shoes look like viking shoes duh okay let's move on to some other basic bits of kit that you might look for in your first season of reenactment let's look at tunics next so viking tunics are deceptively simple here is one of my newest tunics that i've made it's made all by hand it's all stitched by hand and you want your tunic to be a tunic one of the main problems again with inspiration from tv is a lot of tunics in tv are shirt length they only come down to about the thigh the mid thigh that is as long as the fabric comes they're not rocked up over a belt they're not tucked in anything they are very very short garments your tunic should not be the same length as your everyday t-shirt gentlemen your tunic should come down to your knees preferably a little lower than your knees but knee length is about what you're aiming for why because you then rock it over your waist belt a little bit to get that fashionable early medieval look we know that this was popular all over europe and we have no reason not to think that the vikings were doing anything and we're doing the same so look for something that's tunic length yes we do have some evidence that the vikings wore slightly shorter tunics than other peoples but definitely not the super short not even covering your bum so next you have to make sure that your tunic is made out of the right materials my tunic is made out of wool it's made out of a nice diamond twirl wool and there are websites out there that will tell you the different types of wool weaves that the vikings were capable of making they were mostly making their wool on warp weighted looms that were operated by hand and there's only a certain number of types of weave that we've got from the archaeology that we know that the vikings were using in their clothing linen was used yes linen was used as underwear so if you're making a tunic out of linen the usual expectation is that that is an undergarment it's an under tunic it's an underdress or an undercurdle generally the practice in medieval europe was to put the linen next to your skin and then put the wool over that if you're reenacting somebody of a lower status somebody poorer yes you probably have a woolen undertunic instead of a nice soft linen one cotton is not appropriate cotton is never the right material to go for if you're making medieval clothing okay if you're looking at a viking tunic don't make it out of cotton yes i know you can get a nice cheap cotton sheeting for two pounds a yard but that cheap cotton sheeting is going to look like garbage it isn't going to look right it's going to fall in the wrong way it's going to fold in the wrong way and it's not going to keep you warm cotton is a terrible terrible material if you're trying to keep warm in the medieval period it's also basically not available to any of anyone in the viking age so what you want is wool now you can get wool relatively cheaply i've made possibly okay authentic viking tunics out of old wool blankets from the charity shop if it's a really heavy blanket weight wool that you get for cheap make that into your cloak and just make a linen tunic for now there are ways around this i know that wool is expensive wool tunics are expensive but they will look better they will last longer and they will be so much more authentic than buying something like this what's wrong with this guy well first of all his tunic seems to be made of cotton decoration on the arms is a machine made polyester decorative band he has horrible horrible blanket stitching well it's not even blanket stitch what is it it's just like a weird whip stitch on the bottom of his tunic decoration there on that white strip and he's got that horrible horrible costume party pirate what is the neck no one's ever done their shirt up that way let me tell you something that's never how a tunic looked that is never how a tunic looked actually if you took the weird belt off replaced it with a nice belt took all of the bands of decoration off and took all of the eyelets out of it and got rid of the whipstitch on the bottom that tunic wouldn't be too bad if it was made of wool don't buy it's unique like this so you can find good tunics online you can find good again simple vikings unix go for something simple is it made of wool perfect is it about knee length great do the sleeves look sort of semi-fitted okay cool avoid big ostentatious embroideries like this direct embroidery onto the material that the garment is made of is a thing in the viking period and before and after but the context that these embroideries come from are usually not clothing based this one i believe is from a runestone so the fact that it's got this on it tells me that this is something that is just thrown together somebody googled viking icon or viking patton saw this it looked cool they threw it onto a tunic the slit for the neck goes down really really far revealing your chest is not fashionable in viking age europe so don't be doing that the bottom bottom hem it's kind of whack it's kind of it's kind of strange that it goes down a lot further at the back than at the front i think that's based on the uh viborg shirt which isn't a tunic it's a shirt and it's not really a common thing that we see in tunics of this period so be careful of details like that look for the little details make sure that the bottom hem looks good make sure that the shape of it is tunic shape this is a tunic this is an 11th century tunic from kragerland this is the shape of a medieval garment this is an actual 1 000 year old tunic look at the shape of the sleeves look at the way that it sort of poofs out at the bottom it's got side gauze extra pieces in the sides to poof it out i have another video about that aspect of viking tunic construction so if your tunic looks a bit like this that is probably okay for you to go for that looks medieval that's a good shape for your medieval tunic to be if your tunic looks like this you are going down the wrong road please back up look in the rear view mirror don't run over any kids please just it's okay it's cool we all go the wrong way every now and then no one can read a map anymore it's fine derek it's fine it's fine it's okay it's okay let's talk about pounds so when you look for viking pants on the internet or viking trousers you inevitably find these guys so these are based on evidence we have images of people wearing big puffy trousers we have some archaeological remains of these trousers we have mentions of various northern cultures including the rus and the norse wearing trousers made of large amounts of cloth did they look like this no these are well i mean they're black for a star they're made of cotton they've got eyelets down the sides which is just not something that i've ever seen ever and they've got the lower leg tubes did they have lower leg tubes probably not it's a complex way of making a pair of pants it's pretty impractical it's another seam to rip if you're doing anything strenuous and most of the evidence that we have suggests that what they actually did was wore knee length britches and then from the knee down they would wear something like this they would wear a pair of stockings or a pair of short hose these are a pair of my short hoes they're made of wool they are made to a period pattern they're actually made after this pair and they do the job fine you secure them at the knee with a garter or with a hook and they'll stay up all day long be careful with these viking baggy pants current research leans towards them being probably knee-length britches they come in all shapes and oil flavors some of them have the classic drawstring at the waist which is possible for the viking period it's potentially how it was done some of them have belt loops and a fitted waistband which is also potentially how they were done this pair is amazing and it comes from project broad axe i'll link down to the website in the description because these guys do some amazing interpretive work on the actual archaeology that we have yes the original had a butt patch in a different colour re-enactors don't like to talk about it we don't think that this is typical for the period we think this is probably a replacement or an extension of the originals we don't really know much about these things we have very little material evidence we've got a piece of crotch seam and that's about it the one we do have the remains that we do have are made from wool they are wool not linen not cotton not silk they were made of wool wool is the single biggest material made in europe more wool is produced in europe than any other kind of material they were making everything out of it okay they were making sail cloth out of it they were making sacks out of it they were making bedding and curtains out of it and they were making every item of clothing out of it you can imagine including mittens in fact the viking mittens that we have from iceland are made out of wool fabric look how cute they are it's got a string to tie around so you don't lose your mittens it's adorable i love it so viking pants if you really really want the viking baggy pants try to find a pair that don't go below the knee if you can't find a decent wool pair that doesn't go below the knee chop off the leg tube and keep a little bit underneath the knee as a knee band for practicality's sake mine don't have a knee band i didn't make them with a knee band and i regret that so having tried to wear them without a knee band i think a knee band is probably a practical thing a practical thing that they would have used don't quote me on that as evidence i do not count as primary or secondary source material for evidence of you putting knee bands on your viking baggy pants and then then getting banned by your authenticity officer at your new reenactment group that's just how i'm leaning right now if you're not that bothered a pair of these guys bear with me these are very much pre-viking age these are not viking age trousers however these are these trousers we think might be sammy not norse however we have pictures like this that show men wearing semi-fitted ankle length-ish trousers they look like sailor's slops from a few centuries later get a general pair of trousers you're probably okay however an awful awful lot of people lean towards the idea that the vikings like much of the rest of europe would have been wearing semi-fitted or fitted hoes they are popular everywhere they were probably being imported into viking age scandinavia they were encountering them everywhere else that they were settling including the byzantine empire it's likely that they were wearing these they're fun they're relatively simple to make i plan to do a video on how to make a pair of these hoes at some point they will look good for other societies and cultures as well if you want to reenact the normans the anglo-saxons the irish the welsh whoever these things are probably going to be useful at some point so my advice to you stick to a pair of hoes if you can find a decent wool pair of hoes buy them that is my advice that's just that is what i would say headgear the classic fluffy hat so this fur hat we have some evidence existed in one place and obviously it's burka everything comes from burka that is questionable um don't buy them don't buy them they look dumb they look dumb as hell and we have very little evidence that they were worn outside of a very very small cultural area i would go for something like the pillbox cap that we actually do have quite a lot of evidence for this is a pillbox cap right here it's very simple er viking ones could be made from one two three pieces this is a three piece one one piece for the band two piece for the top you can also make them with a single piece of the top and a single piece for the band you can make a paneled cap here's a paneled cap four paneled six paneled eight paneled we think they were wearing all of those varieties they're useful to have to keep the sun off your head especially if you don't have a great deal of hair um headgear was popular in the viking age we know that they were wearing caps and hats get yourself a simple one though the furry hats they're generally overpriced uh the decorative knobs on the end are usually not very good quality i would avoid them on the internet you don't know where the furs come from if you don't know if it's been sourced ethically in most cases i would just get yourself a little pillbox cap or a simple paneled cap if you can find them in wool okay silk decoration is a thing we know that they were decorating their hats with tablet woven bands with pieces of silk uh further east in russia they were making hats out of bricated sulk so there are options for the headgear that are broader than just the furry santa hat please try to avoid the furry santa hat for actual reenactment events if you can they're just they're everywhere we found like one two of those little nobules and we don't really know how they worked we just don't we don't cloaks cloaks are the simplest thing that you can buy for viking reenactment because they are a square of cloth if you find somebody online who is selling a meter and a half square of plain woven wool you have found someone selling you a cloak make sure that it is a period-appropriate color make sure that it is wool and make sure that it is big enough for you to wear it as a cloak a cloak is a piece of heavy weather gear okay it is a blanket effectively for you to wrap yourself in it is something to keep the rain and the wind off it should be a decent quality it should be nice and thick if you find one that has pile woven wool even better pile weaving is where you basically put more bits of wool uh into the wool that you're weaving and then give it a little comb and it starts to look like fur fake fur amazing coats are a bit of a difficult subject because we don't have a huge amount of evidence for them we have a tiny fragment of one here it is that's about it we have evidence of buttons mostly from uh north eastern europe we do have some very very slight slender evidence of buttons from ireland but the archaeological report that it's from is difficult to find the context is unclear i would avoid the whole viking warrior wrap coat thing if you are just starting out uh if you want to try and get one get one that is simple again simplicity is key here it should be made of wool the trim should be made of wool pile woven wool is something we know that they used for these things we found fragments of it so if you can find a red coat made of red wool with madder pink fake fur made out of pile woven wool as the trim you have found something insane and authentic buy it now uh if you find stuff that is overly complex stuff that just seems a bit iffy avoid it ask your mates ask other re-enactors who have experience in this my lip bleeding my lips bleeding ask archaeologists read up on this okay it's worth reading up on this to get it right and that should be a part of the hobby the research should be a part of this hobby of reenactment if you want to dress up like someone from the past you yourself should know what they looked like so do the reading do the research what else can we talk about we can talk about belts belts should be narrow belts like this no no no a nice belt it doesn't need to be more than an inch wide inch and a half inch that's fine again vegetable tanned leather they were dying leather there's a video in the pipeline about this but i don't know of any belt finds with dyed leather i would love to find one i don't know of any the belt fittings there are literally thousands of belt buckles and strap ends if you look at portable antiquities scheme for england and wales if you go to the scottish national museum the national museum of wales the irish national museum national museum of denmark national museum of norway they are everywhere get a d-shaped buckle with a buckle plate and a simple xomorphic strap end there you go you can do that for a tenner you do that for 10 or 20 quid job done that's a belt piece cake simple i suppose the only other stuff you might need to be aware of is stuff that is gnarlbend norwind sorry stuff that is norbind norbend is needle binding um it's a wonderful form of fiber art that involves uh effectively um looping around yarn using a single needle it's wizardry i can't do it it's magic only wizards can do it um i cannot do it the vikings used nalbend for a lot of stuff they made we know that they made socks out of it they made gloves out of it we have a single i believe hat made out of knowledge which is just a plain looking just a cap just a cap if you see people advertising wacky shaped hats uh fingered gloves made of nullbind those are not really based on anything archaeologically if you see people advertising like norbent balaclavas and scarves and all kinds of weird like the the neck mantle things avoid those have no basis in reality whatsoever they're cool as hell if you can make one like rock on but don't bring it onto my reenactment site all right we'll take it off you put it in the campfire um that's not a thing uh yeah that's effectively that is it that is my advice to you for buying viking clothing ready made online double check all the fittings your measurements should be um they should be next to you as you're buying this stuff so you want it fitted around your chest you want it fitted around your wrists you want your tunic to be flared below the waist so it wants to flare out give you a skirt okay ladies toilet remember you want the ladies toilet silhouette for your tunic your viking baggy trousers do try to avoid the ones with the leg tubes i i do not have any further information to give you on that everything i said is everything i want to tell you shoes keep it simple keep it vegetan keep it turn chewed yeah simple veg tan turn shoes one or two toggles is the most toggles you really need if you are desperate to have more toggles there are three toggle boots out there also remember that gendering shoes was not a thing in the viking period we had no evidence whatever that they gendered their shoes that is cobblers in terms of the hats again pillbox caps panel caps cloaks are a square of fabric dead easy and all of these garments except for the shoes should be wool and you should have a linen undertunic okay so keep the linen next to your skin underneath your hose if you're wearing a pair of braids a pair of big baggy medieval underpants those should be linen not cotton and they should reach at least down to your knees in most cases if you're just going to wear um trousers or baggy viking trousers uh just you can get away with just wearing your modern underwear underneath that i tend to wear bray's anyway because i'm weird kinky the final thing is i know i haven't mentioned jewelry i want to do a separate video on viking age jewelry in which i will talk about some of the modern viking style jewelry that you see online so i'm not going to talk about jewelry specifically in this video because i want to do another video about jewelry later on because who lord that is a big gulp of a video so i hope that you found some of this interesting guys if um there is stuff that you guys have seen online uh if there's stuff that you guys have had experience with please do let us know in the comments uh if you guys want to hear about any specific other viking stuff that you could buy online let me know if i've missed anything in this video please let me know if this has helped you if you watch this video and it helps you to avoid buying the wrong piece of clothing please do let me know in the comments i'd love to hear if i've been helping you guys out thank you once again to everybody who has subscribed if you want to see more of me then do that youtube stuff and click those youtube things um thank you so much for being here once again uh thank you so much once again for joining me i'll see you next time bye for now get a picture of the furry hat up so i can look at the furry hat [Music] i hate it thanks i hate it oh no that one's not bad that one's bad off the weird brooch on it why does everyone put the weird brooch on it oh i despair quietly to myself you

Channel: The Welsh Viking

Views: 78,886

Keywords: The Welsh Viking, history, reenactment, Vikings, MySCA

Id: AkbYDQ3_a8s

Length: 31min 20sec (1880 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020