On Thursday 23 February 2006 3:37 pm, Adele de Maisieres wrote: > Dawn wrote: > > You might also get him in touch with another SCA guy, so he can talk > > to someone who is enthusiastic about (or at least comfortable with ) > > the clothing. I've known a lot of guys afraid of looking silly, until > > the peer pressure convinced them that baby blue velvet pants with a > > satin lining and lace cuffs were cool. > > Occasionally, I think men need to be shown a short video of women's > reactions to their clothes and presentation. Guys, we don't even notice > you in your dark blue tunic with the dark red facing and black > trousers. The video would undoubtely show us gushing "Ooo, Terese, look > at that guy in the PINK!".
And color's not the only issue. I have a personal anecdote to relate on the issue of tights (okay, waist-length hose) on men. In September my husband and I were in a LARP set in the early Italian Renaissance. It was a body-conscious era, but Eric didn't want to mess with hose with points, and I'm no tailor (so I wasn't about to try to make him a period farsetto, either with the Medieval Miscellanea pattern or from scratch.) He was willing to wear modern tights with a doublet. I had a black, vaguely late Elizabethan Chivalry Sports doublet I'd purchased for him several years ago (also for a LARP). So he wore that, and I bought him a suitable hat and made him a knee length cioppa, black and silver brocade, with red satin lining, to wear over it all. I was a bit concerned about how well it would all look, but not from an authenticity perspective. (It turned out that the GMs for the game knew *nothing* of period costume, so that despite all my compromises Eric was one of the most authentically dressed people in the game.) No, my concern was that Eric's acquired quite a bit of a gut over the past few years--too much traveling and eating crappy airline/hotel food. I was a bit worried that he'd look like a dodo bird or something in doublet and hose. To my surprise, he looked *marvelous*, even without the cioppa. The doublet still fit, and minimized his gut, and his legs and butt are quite nice if I must say so myself. With the hat and the cioppa, he really looked the part of the Duke of Milan (which he was playing). I'm kicking myself for not having taken pictures. (Of course, we still have the costume, but the game turned sour for Eric, so I don't want to remind him of it too soon by making him wear the costume again just for a photo shoot.) Things like this are a useful reminder that our forebears weren't idiots, and that clothing that looks so odd when you first encounter pictures of it in books really is flattering when you fit it on real people. -- Cathy Raymond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Physics is like sex; sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."--Richard Feynman _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
