Choosing your Garb

At this point, you can generally make a list of what clothing items you will need and start either making or purchasing them. Your Garb is your Persona’s costume. This is what you will wear and how you will present yourself. This is where you get a lot of freedom. Some tips for choosing your garb:

The world was not actually all muddy and dark colors
- Colorful dyes made of plants and bathing are not actually modern inventions. People did not often walk around in black leather, dark brown everything, and covered in mud
- People would clean themselves off, they would seek out clean or boiled water, and would dye their clothes
- Black was actually very expensive. Purple and blue were usually reserved for royalty
Clothes were made differently in just about every era of history, and the modern day is no exception
- Trends would come and go in style. Just like Bell Bottoms, Zoot Suits, and the like
- Your Garb will generally be dictated by your social class, geographical region, culture, and era
How you keep your hair (and, potentially, beard) is part of your Garb
- Some cultures expected long hair and beards as part of the norm, but there were almost always exceptions
- It may be hard to justify being a early middle-ages monk if you don’t have a headcap or actual bald spot cut into your hair, for instance
- This is taken with more or less degrees of seriousness by different people and groups

My Process

The Anglo-Saxon middle ages were a wonderful time to exist for easy Garb. Really, pretty much everyon from the King down to the lowest of the low wore the same items, made the same way, with different quality materials. In general, I, Æthelric, would wear (From Outer to Inner):

A cap made of wool or leather
A rectangular wollen Cloak clasped with a simple clasp
A woolen hood or cowl if it was raining
A Leather apron when working at the forge
A leather belt over my tunic, this would hold a knife and purse
A Woolen Tunic of different weight depending the season
A pair of hose bias-cut from woll or flax-linen. I may have a pair of sheepskin hose for work
A Linen undershirt. This may have some cotton in it.
A pair of leg wraps made of wool or linen tied on with leather cordage
A pair of leather shoes when moving over open land or working at the forge

I probably also have a pair of knit mittens for the cold season

This sets me up for a fairly straightforward and simple outfit. It allows for embellishment by embroidery or bordering, can be dyed to match my kingdom colors, etc.

Resources for construction or purchase

As I garb up, I may or may not put new resources here. I already have some on my resources page.