Sarah Thursfield

An excellent resource for clothing of the high middle ages

Many books on medieval clothing are intended for those wishing to build costumes rather than clothing, with information on how to make garments having a superficial appearance of belonging to a particular era, but little in the way of information on authentic construction. Other books are geared toward scholarly research, and excellent for the advanced recreationalist, but without much practical information on garment construction. show more This volume has the best of both, combining solid research and clear “how to make it” instructions in one source
The book covers measurements, patterns, suggested materials, and methods of construction, with over a hundred patterns for shirts or smocks, cotes, doublets, kirtles, gowns and cotehardies, hose, cloaks, and appropriate headwear and accessories. There is information on children’s clothing as well.
Well and thoroughly illustrated (with both drawings and photos of models wearing constructed medieval clothing,) the book is accessible to the novice or intermediate costumer and sewer, and still a good and enjoyable source for the advanced historic clothing researcher. show less

I have two quibbles with this book. One is that I would like her to discuss some of her decisions about how certain items are cut (I can see where she got some of them, but I've been working on 15th C clothing for 10 years now). The other is a really a problem with editing and layout -- you have to flip back and forth to get all the directions to lay out a particular item, and that's aggravating. But those are just quibbles; this is a fantastic book.

This is a lot more detailed and complicated than I would ever need. It's really only needed if you are doing extensive reenactments. Of course, if you need it at all, you need it, and probably the revised edition.

I'm not going to rate this, as I am not its intended audience.

Essential for those making Medieval European clothing re-enactment