Viking Clothing

Today, in general, a lot of people's conception of Viking age clothes are derived from movies and television programmes. Since a lot of false information and myths circulate about this time the costumes are frequently changed to fit the story of the movie or simply are not carefully enough researched. In historical movies, the costuming ends up representing a random mixture of different epochs and regions, or even contains fantasy elements, creating an appealing style—but an inaccurate one. I am not here to say this is right or wrong, if a sexy look of a Shieldmaiden appeals to you then go for it, it's not accurate and depending on where you are planning to sport your new look, there are many festivals that you will be with other like-minded individuals however there are others where you will feel completely out of place since the importance of being as accurate as possible is incredibly important to the people around you. That’s your prerogative, I certainly have a few dresses I love, not at all accurate, but they make me feel good!

Some Viking clothing outfits may be more verifiable than others, no single image matches the vast diversity of the Viking Age that spanned more than 250 years and inhabited more than a dozen geopolitical areas with a wide variety of different cultures and influences. While there have been substantial archaeological finds and active scholarship, much of that world is lost to time. It is a shame, then, that sometimes people let quarrels about what may or may not be “accurate” get in the way of their shared interests and appreciation.

There are lots of ways we can look for more accurate evidence and that is what I began doing firstly for my own personal knowledge and then moving on to be able to create “Fenrir and Freya” with some knowledge comfortably behind me.

What do we base our historical clothes on?

First, I would like to point out that we don’t have many garments left from the Viking age. In fact, we only have a few handfuls of close to intact garments. Some examples are The Viborg shirt, the Kragelund tunic, the Moselund tunic and the Skjoldhamn tunic and trousers. These are all from the transition period between the Viking age and the medieval period. We also have some later findings, from the early and mid-medieval period, like the Guddal shirts and the Herjolfsnes findings. It is also useful to look at older findings when we are trying to recreate garments. The Huldremose lady is one example on earlier than Viking age findings. The Huldremose lady probably died sometime between 160 BCE and 340 CE. These are all very useful to look at in an attempt to recreate the clothes of the Vikings.

Because the majority of the textiles we have preserved are only small fragments, there is really do not have much to work with. It is really hard to base a garment on these little pieces of textiles. That is why it is good to have those few whole garments to look at and inspire us too. Fashion came and went a little bit slower then than in our modern time. The fragments and the garments still do not give us that much to go after. We must therefore look to other sources as well. We can use art from the period for example. On small figures from the Viking age (Uppåkra, Tjørnehøj, Nygård, Tissø, Öland, Lejre, Björkö – just to mention a few), on some rune stones and in some embroideries from the period we can get an idea on how people dressed.

We can also go to the written sources – the sagas (a good read by the way, full of humour). They also give us a few descriptions on what the garments could have looked. Although this may sound like a lot of sources, we still know very little about how the Vikings actually dressed. Most of the fragments of textiles that we have is found in what we believe is graves of rich people who belonged to the highest rank in society. The fragments that we find is often related to metal objects that has been lying firmly against the fabric and therefore preserved it. The more metal objects, the more textile is preserved, and more metal often means more wealth. One should therefore keep in mind that these graves generally show how the richest people dressed.