Costuming Resources


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Here are some good links for Celtic costuming; especially for those interested in accurate period costumes.


General Information Sites:

For general information, there's the Costumer's Manifesto; and their 17th, 18th, and 19th century links pages.

For Irish attire, try: What the Irish Wore or A (much) smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland

More on the léine at McPhee's and Garbindex.com.

For Scottish attire, try: The Scottish Side of Reconstructing History

For Scottish women's clothing, this is a great reference.

Clann Donnaichaidh
is a Jacobite (1630-1680 and 1745) reenactment unit, and has guidelines for the period attire of both periods.

Ready to Wear maintains a list of informational sites and vendors of period clothing for all periods and many countries.



Highland and Period Wear:

My favorite source is Tartanweb; Douglas McGregor runs a great shop, specializing in the great kilt and period outfits, but you'll find all your modern Scottish clothing there too.

Boasting an impressive catalogue of Highland wear, pipes, and piping supplies, The British Shop is an indispensable resource.

Another all-purpose supplier is The Scottish Lion.  Yet another is the Celtic Isles Shop.  

Cuillinn Craft
is fine shop that does custom tailoring of their kilts, and have a lot of period outfit offerings.

More period costuming can be found at the gift-shop at Scottish Tartans Museum, with great kilt items here.

and also at Warwear.

Mainly specializing in tartan fabric (though they sell and rent kilts too), House of Tartan is an excellent store.

Some days you just need socks.  For your tartan hose, try Kenneth Short.  

And with those socks, shoes... well, red deer hide to make period shoes from can be found at the Uber Glove company and Shaffer Venison Farms, Inc.. If mule deer or white-tail will do, try Moscow Hide and Fur.

And some days you just need a purse.  Selling sporrans, and belts, exclusively as a vendor at highland games, Clan Leather Works produces some great products.

And then there are the days when you need an edged weapon to complete your ensemble.  For that, I recommend Museum Replicas, Inc.. but other vendors include Valentine Armouries, Brubaker Swords and Armory, The Armory, Viking Metal Works, and India Crafts Emporium. The Armadillo Armory has Lochaber axes, to complete the outfit with a pole-arm

If a blade isn't enough, and you need a period firearm, try The Rifle Shoppe.

And when you want to hit the town in a modern kilt, try a Utilikilt.

Smoke and Fire Company and Jas. Townsend and Son, Inc. are period outfitters for the 18th and 19th centuries, mostly specializing in colonial America, but a lot of their items are appropriate for period Scottish costume as well.



The page background is the tartan for County Londonderry, Ireland. The pattern was developed for Irish expatriates by the House of Edgar. I have picked it because I am decended* from one George Walker D.D. (1645-1690), Rictor of Donaghmore, County Londonderry, governor of Derry during the siege of 1689, and killed in the Battle of Boyne while acting as the Colonel of the Derry and Inniskillen Regiments.  This branch of Walkers lived in Co. Londonderry, Ireland from about 1570, having come from Ruddington, Nottingham, England. His descendants emigrated in 1720 to Appoquinemink Hundred, Delaware.

* From what genealogical data I've been able to uncover; it gets less certain before the ancestor who fought in the American Revolution.


Made on a Mac.


Last Updated 17 May 2005, 5:06 PM ET