Living In-Character #5: The Importance of Appropriate Garb
Your costume is among the most important pieces of equipment you need for LARPing, as it can speak volumes about your character’s background or interests, and it’s the unspoken notifier stating that you’re part of the LARP.
When selecting your garb, you should keep a few factors in mind:
What does the character do?
What is the setting of the LARP?
What sorts of weather will you wear it in?
What are your LARP’s venues like?
How will you maintain the garb?
Many garb vendors advise that their garb be exclusively dry-cleaned, and for good reason. However, this can prove to cost a pretty penny over time, especially considering how expensive LARPing can be as it is. Of course, different settings call for different sorts of garb–after all, you wouldn’t likely fit in well in athletic shorts and a tank top if you were to participate in a pre-colonial LARP, would you? However, you could make standard daily attire work for a modern zombie apocalypse setting.
Take into account the sort of areas you’ll be LARPing in, and what the weather would be like. Will it be in breezy, shaded woods, or in blisteringly hot fields? Canvas and wool are great for helping fend off the rain and wind, but offer little in the way of cooling effects. Meanwhile, linen is fantastic for hot days, but breathes too much in the breeze to keep you warm. Thus, it is helpful to have at least one outfit for extreme heat, extreme cold, and a midpoint.
Dressing is layers can help to keep you warm, but offers an additional benefit: realism. In the real world, many people layer their clothes, and accessorize with outerwear, scarves, and hats. The same fashion concepts can be applied to your garb, too! Adding layers provide depth, color contrast, flattering curves, and generally sharp looks.
Keep in mind what the venue is like and what you’ll be doing, too. After all, practicality typically trumps fashion when you’re facing life-or-death situations for a living, right? As such, running through briar-filled woods in a billowing skirt isn’t the best idea–unless you want it getting ripped a bit. Likewise, corsets are killer with mobility, as they tend to limit your flexibility at the waist, so don’t expect to dodge blows like Neo when you’re wearing one. It also doesn’t help to be wearing a gentleman’s royal court attire when you are actually a druid toiling in the forest.
In short, tunics, peasant tops, and sturdy trousers or breeches are your friends, though this is admittedly a biased statement.
So, with all of this in mind, where can you get your hands on good garb? There are a ton of fantastic vendors like Mytholon, Epic Armoury, and Sofi’s Stitches, and you can even find garb on sites like Etsy, Wish, and Amazon. You can save a bit by purchasing directly from the vendor rather than using third-party retailers, and it’s best to keep the rule of “you get what you pay for” in mind.
If you don’t want to break the bank though, there are plenty of alternatives! Many LARPs play host to multitudes of artisans, including tailors who’re often more than happy to make garb to order–or who have garb for sale at events! In addition, you can often find garb that could be slightly modified to fit the setting of your LARP at thrift stores or even retail stores including Walmart. Military surplus stores also sometimes have useful goods, and you can even dig through your closet and find a gem or two tucked away. Finally, it pays to visit costume shops and seasonal Halloween stores on the day following Halloween, as they often have pieces that could be used for LARP purposes, and marked way down, too!
No matter how you go about selecting your outfit, it is important to keep in mind the fact that everyone starts somewhere, and you won’t be expected to have a perfect costume right off the bat. If you need help with finding garb, don’t hesitate to ask your LARP’s player base for advice and assistance–they’ll undoubtedly be willing to help.
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