Before I launch into huge amounts of detail, is there a post/site/thread/thing detailing LARP costuming for dummies? All of the LARPs I’ve played in thus far have been modern day and so the “costuming” has been more dress-up than anything else
How do you go about getting a costume together? What’s considered “modern” especially in regard to buttons, utensils, fabrics, and so on? (I am assuming zips are right out, as well as anything that looks plastic-y)
A more Teonn-centric question: Can you get away with wearing “clothes” and claiming they are light armour? What should the clothes be made of?
Where do you get such things?
Apologies for the complete noob-ness of the questions!!
Pants -Trackpants - get plain solid colour cotton tracksuit pants. Opp shops and value stores have them.
Basic Tunic - Buy a XXXL plain t shirt, either white or solid colour. Making a T tunic is not hard either. Adding a tabard adds a lot. Don’t forget a nice broad belt to gather it all with. Or even old brown rope looped around a couple of times.
Basic boots - Ugg boots from the warehouse. (They have comfort drawbacks after a whole weekend however). Otherwise get plain black shoes. You can use cloth leg wraps to dress this up.
Basic cloak - theres a thread on these. A square of cloth, a simple fold at the top, sewn in place, run cord through this to gather and tie the cloak.
ARMOUR - you’d be suprised what you can borrow. But generally armour needs to at least look like armour, not clothes. I have bracers you could borrow and a black vest as well as some other bits and bobs. At its most basic you can make a basic tunic/vest of leatherette or light leather and that satisfies the requirement for “leather” or light armour.
Op shops are great for foundations. Belts, Pants, Plain undershirts etc can all be found here. The following relates to the things I have learnt looking for stuff in Op shops for medieval clothes. The majority of my personal gear is from op shops and has served duty across not only the medieval genre but into the 1930’s and western games by careful selection of simple clothing as a base and then accesorised with 2 dollar shop items.
Medieval shirts for men - Don’t be afriad to look in the womens wear section of op shops for white or cream shirts. Female tops often have collars which lack the lapels which IMHO make a shirt look modern also avoid ones that have a breast pocket. The girls section is often alot bigger than the guys section you’ll have more choice as well. Also same goes with this as for jarad’s suggestion above…go bigger than needed and get a belt to put over it for a more of a medieval look.
Buttons - Remember they can always be replaced. For fantasy buttons check sewing shops for wood, bone or shell buttons of the same or similar size.
Pants - Brown - Brown cotton pants to me scream “out of date”. They arn’t that common now for everday wear, but seem to float around the opshops since the 70’s. Also same as with the shirt tip above guys dont be afraid of that women’s ware section, they often lack pockets and sometimes come with draw strings so you can buy them baggy.
Material - Keep an eye out for course slightly “sack like” materials. If you go smooth you may want to make it slightly shiney and smooth so you can at least say its silk.
If its not visible it dosen’t HAVE to be period - Dont waste time trying to find button down flies. If you can’t see the zip you should be ok.
Once you have your foundation down from the op shops…accesories your heart out.
Depending on what you’re after, you could head down to somewhere like “Pete’s Emporium” - In Porirua they have costumes, which are around 20-30$. They have basic stuff, which can be mix n matched with other clothes depending on what your after.
IF you’re thinking about a fire elemental, then red pants and a red long sleeve t-shirt would be a great basic start. Comfortable shoes is a must for Teonn. I had steel capped work boots, which are fine for a few hours, but after a while of walking backwards and forward and running around, they started giving me shinsplints (very painful). But you don’t want sneakers (which I had to swap to for sunday ).
I used white thermals dyed green in my washing machine for my Orc Character in Knightshade at Chimera, Tight fitting coloured clothes make for great skin colour, if you don’t want to fuss over body paint. But would still suggest doing the face, or at least face painting something on.
Discrete zips aren’t a problem for the most part. I’ve worn fantasy-medieval dresses to larps that zip up, largely because lacing is a bitch (you quickly realise why noble ladies had ladies-in-waiting…they couldn’t actually get dressed by themselves) While this is less likely to be an issue for you, the upshot is that discrete zips are usually fine.
As long as it looks like leather, you’re okay. We made Rowena some light leather armour out of fabric that looked like really heavy leather (it was a really convincing illusion, you don’t know it’s cloth until you touch it) and decorated it with buckles. It looks the real deal.
I disagree with Jared on this. Footwear, for a weekend game, is where you should sacrifice look for functionality. You’re going to be on your feet all weekend. You’re going to be running on reasonably treacherous terrain. You need to wear shoes you’re comfortable to do that stuff in, not a pair of cheapies from the Warehouse. I would rather suggest that you wear any dark coloured shoes (hiking boots, dark sneakers) and dress them up, rather than buying something that’s going to be useless/painful by mid-Saturday. The only things that are completely taboo at larping is white sneakers, because they’re so glaringly modern, but usually as long as it’s dark coloured, nobody pays too much attention.
Jared’s completely right, don’t waste time with “authentic pants”, I think every non-dress-wearing character of mine has worn cheapie track pants. They’re plain enough that they don’t attract attention, comfortable, cheap and warm.
My Main Advice: Dress Up What Will Be Seen
The place you want to put effort in are your top, your cloak and any headwear that you want. This is what will be most prominent when people look at you. Unless they are glaringly out of place, nobody will even glance at your shoes and pants. But your upper torso, arms and face are what people will be focussing on - that’s where your costuming effort should go. I recommend making/commissioning a tunic rather than using a modified shirt. With some well chosen fabric, some trim and that distinctive tunic shape, it gets you a lot of costuming mileage fairly easily. Cloaks are fairly easy, as Jared said there’s a thread on them somewhere - Derek has a great trick of making them out of old army blankets for the dual benefit of rough look and reliable warmth. A medieval hood or hat is also relatively easy to conjure up, and really adds to the look. Failing something like that, a bandana also works (but you want to be careful you don’t get mistaken for a legitimate seafarer, they’re a dodgy lot)
Practicality
Things people often think about when making costumes, but are really freakin’ useful:
Pockets, bags, and pouches: You’re going to be on the go a lot in larping, and usually away from your “base of operations” so make sure your costume has enough carry-space that you can fit everything you need to carry on you. A belt with pouches or a shoulder bag, or a back pack, all useful ways to solve this problem.
Thermals - Remember the game is in late May, in the very last days of autumn so you want to make sure you stay warm. Figure out what thermals you want to wear, and make sure your costume covers them.
The best thing to remember when putting together your first costume is that we’re larpers and that for us it’s all about the illusion. What you wear could be made of really modern fabrics, but as long as the whole effect looks like you’re fantasy-medieval fire elemental, it doesn’t matter what the constituent pieces are.
Boots: TradeMe! Some interesting stuff comes up in their footwear section, and if you check out Sports > Equestrian > Footwear & apparel > Footwear you might be able to score some knee-high riding boots cheap (a bit difficult for people with big feet like me).
Cloaks: Get a plain wool blanket from TradeMe or an op-shop. The basic grey ones are good, but if you can find something in bright red, go for it. Find a nice pin (maybe buy one) and you have an instant rectangular cloak, good for any ancient or medieval game.
Pouches: Get an appropriate-looking old handbag, and you have an instant shoulder pouch (or whack the strap off, add a belt-loop, and you have a belt-pouch instead). You can find these over TradeMe again, but the nice looking tooled leather ones tend to be expensive (they’re fashionable, I guess). I got mine from a charity sale.
Pockets: You will need them - somewhere to keep your character sheet.
Buying stuff: If you have money to waste, you can get some very nice costumes over the interwebs (just google for “larp costume” or “larp shop” to start). I foud it useful to get some of the stuff I couldn’t find easily, like a ring belt and claok pins.
Basic costumes are relatively easy; its the accessories that are effort.
On looking at what I wrote, you’re quite right Anna. My Ugg boots weren’t good. They seemed fine for the first day but the blisters I formed on day 2 and 3 left me almost unable to walk.
It might, however, be possible to purchase a cheap pair of ugg boots, cut the soles off, and attach what remains to an “undershoe” with some elastic/laces or something.
Put your foot into the ugg-boot-upper, put your comfortable/durable shoes on, slide the upper down so it covers your durable shoes, pass the elastic loop attached to the ugg-boot-upper underneath the regular shoes … voila! Non-modern-looking-comfortable-shoes! Probably double warm, too!
Disclaimer: I have never tried this … it was just a random idea that occured to me … I have no idea how well it would/won’t work …
Yeah, footwear requires compromises. A mate decorated some gumboots and wore them for his first weekend game, and he regretted it immensely… they don’t breath and have no padding, so they have a horrible effect of your feet over time, and have crap ankle support. Dark shoes or boots that you’ve already worn in are the go.
Thanks all that’s a great starting point. I have the sewing ability of a two-toed ostrich (and feet to match unfortunately for the long-boots idea) but now at least I know what I’m looking for when I go op-shopping
[quote=“Ignifluous”]It might, however, be possible to purchase a cheap pair of ugg boots, cut the soles off, and attach what remains to an “undershoe” with some elastic/laces or something.
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Since my ugg boots failed last game, I will be digging out my previous option, which were professionally made boots from the States and having them made into boot tops (as suggested above). They were even worse than my ugg boots.
So did I when I started (I’m a little better now) It’s a slow process but before you know it, you’ll be sewing and adosing yourself to things at weird hours of the night trying to get stuff ready for larps. It’s a glorious life
My boots for Teonn are actual tramping boots, waterproof, and expensive. However, they do look plain and black, and as such pass for medieval, just. The waterproof and ankle support meant at the end of the weekend my feet felt absolutely fine, if a little tired.
Once you have an idea of what kind of costume you want, feel free to give me a PM and I might be able to help you with some specific suggestions. I have amazing TradeMe-fu (when it relates to finding stuff for others… myself, not as much!)
I’ve found one thing that seems to work well with elementals (I know I don’t play one but I know a few) is if you pick a fire-related thing to model your costume around, i.e. a phoenix, Haphaestus etc, then it gives you something to model your “look” around instead of just “red”
I’ll be running Camelot in Dunedin come Feb/MArch - so that’s something you can aim towards for costuming in the short term, Matt! Standard medieval stuff
).
(I’m a little better now) It’s a slow process but before you know it, you’ll be sewing and adosing yourself to things at weird hours of the night trying to get stuff ready for larps. It’s a glorious life 
OK I’ll bear that in mind when I know what it is I want. B/c right now I don’t really have much of an idea 