Main > The Armoury
Help Me Get Ready For DOK IV
Ian:
--- Quote from: Sir Patrick on 2015-06-15, 17:58:41 ---Deep indeed! OK so I'll lose the spaulders and vambraces and move the beasuges to the shoulder points. Gotta love the free solutions :). On footwear, are ankle-height OK for a martial kit, or do I need taller boots?
--- End quote ---
Ankle height is just fine. I wear simple turnshoes with my harness.
Sir Patrick:
Question regarding cotes/tunics: Wool or linen? It looks like it's around 75 in the afternoons and 55ish at night at Ft. Campbell. I'll probably do a cloak or hood as well. Speaking of wool, what kind works best? Does 100% or an 80/20 blend used in suiting/jacketing work, or should I look for something else?
Ian:
The DoK standards specifically are pretty lax for clothing. Natural fibers are what they want, and synthetics are discouraged. This will not apply to other events and groups, so depending again on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, this will change. This is why DoK is so great for people new to LH, the barrier to entry is low. If you intend to move beyond DoK in the LH world though, you want want to consider exceeding rather than meeting the DoK standard.
If you want to go a more historical route, than you want to restrict linen to just your braies and shirt for medieval England. There is virtually no documentable evidence that linen was used for outer garments during this time based on extant garments, fragments of garments, inventories etc. If you want to get techincal, arming cotes are technically not an underwear layer and are usually made of linen or fustian (a blend of linen and cotton), but we're talking about civil clothing here. Wool is the go-to fabric for any class of society. The higher you go up the more silks you'd be wearing as well, but everyone wears wool and you can't go wrong with it.
The number one reason I hear for people trying to justify linen outer-garments is temperature. I think this is mainly because the word wool evokes in people the image of heavy thick fabric only suitable for blankets and sweaters and heavy coats. This is nonsense. Wool comes in a huge variety of weights and thicknesses ranging from heavy thick fulled wool to very thin and light suiting fabrics (that are often much thinner and lighter than the standard weight linen everyone uses). So you would want to wear the appropriate wool for the occasion.
Wool also looks a heck of a lot better than linen for outer clothing. Look at linen funny and it gets wrinkles everywhere that require and iron to get out. Wool drapes much better than linen and doesn't have that problem. Wool when fulled properly can also become virtually water proof (or at least very water resistant). It also dries much faster than linen when it does get wet.
But seriously, if you're just looking to attend DoK and not become a living history fantatic, in general linen is a heck of a lot cheaper than wool clothing and may not be worth the investment (or time if you intend to make). Oh as far as suiting wool, there should be 100% wools out there in suiting weight, but if you can't find them you can use a blend. Just remember that synthetics near campfires equals bad news. :)
Sir William:
Naturally, if you're going to plumb the depths of the rabbit hole, you might as well find out where the bottom is. ;)
Sir Patrick:
Do I want the red pill or the blue one...?
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