Costume Resources

Arms and Armour

(With thanks to C. Otis Sweezey and the USITT)
• Apprentice Armorer's Illustrated Handbook. This site is largely a mess, but there are gleanings of useful information. Perhaps contacting John Palmer via e-mail will elicit more information. [NB: No change here. It's still largely a mess!]

  Christian Fletcher Armor. Excellent source. Lots of pictures.

• First Class Mail. An excellent source for museum quality arms and armor.

  History of Military Technology and Weapons. Canadian [Armed] Forces College, War, Peace and Security World Wide Web Server. An excellent site! Links to major military collections. [Gone missing, 12/11/01, JW. A real loss!]

• Imperial Austria: Treasures of Art, Arms and Armor from the State of Styria. "Arms and Armor as Art Form and the Decorated Surface."

• Making Mail Armour. Chain Mail Construction by Richard Hoar. Lots of useful links, especially to patterns.

• Medieval-Chain-Mail-Armor. SCA armor, and a good resource for theatrical costumers.

• Medieval Weapons and Armour. A single page site maintained by Pred S. Bundalo at Northwestern University. Some good examples of (mostly) medieval armor.

• Middle Ages Armour and Weapons [NB: This site has been removed from the web, but visit the Highland Park Elementary School (Austin, TX), which hosted it, for listings of major museums and collections. It's very useful!]

• Regia Anglorum: Anglo-Saxon, Viking Norman and British Living History, "a nationwide society with many independent local groups, from Scotland to the south coast, who all work within a tight set of common sense rules. Regia Anglorum attempts to recreate a cross section of English life around the turn of the first millennium." An organization comparable, one suspects, to North America's Society for Creative Anachronisms. The site contains information from a sub-site once called Arms and Armour of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age. Takes some digging, but good information once you get there.

• Sara [Trice's] Chainmail Connection. Good resource.

• Swords and Armor. "Swords, weapons, armor, Japanese Samurai, medieval knights, Scottish Claymore, battle ready shields, helmets, civil war sabers," etc. In short, an excellent resource for costumers in search of authentic period battle gear.

• Tournament Resource Library ; Medieval Weapons and Armour. Mediaeval; Middle Ages armor and weapons. A site maintained by Golding Middle and Elementary School Library, Cobleskill-Richmondville Central School , Cobleskill, NY 12043. Contains many good links to Arms, Armor and the Middle Ages.

• Therion's Medieval Arms and Armor Page. Hardly scholarly, but several good illustrations.

Sites and Collections

• BlueMoonMask. Offers a great variety of hand crafted Venetian masks. The site is in French as well as English.

• The Children's Clothing Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society Collections on line. More than 2000 articles of children's clothing, from 1800 to the 1990s. The pictorial representations are searchable by decade, gender, etc. A wonderful resource.

• Cool Old Stuff, "An Antiques and Collectibles Shop;" with many links to vintage clothing, antique and collectible resources.

• Costume Collection, Department of Drama, University of Virginia. This site is maintained by Professor Kathryne Rohe. It has some good pictorial resources, mostly from the 20th century. [NB: This site has gone missing as of 6/28/02] The site was served by UVA's excellent Digital Media Center

• The Costume Page: Costuming Resources on Line. An extremely interesting collection of costuming links, developed by Julie Zetterberg Sardo. Includes links to just about every aspect of costume imaginable. [Last updated 12 February, 2001]

• English Actors at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Superb color costume plates, from Players of the Day, George Newnes, ca. 1902.

• The History of Costume by Braun & Scheider, c. 1861-1880. Excellent illustrations.

• The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs (P&P) Reading Room. The collection is searchable, a veritable treasure trove of information depicting clothing, decoration, artifacts, etc., much of which is in the public domain. The interface is Byzantine, but the rewards are worth the effort.

• Memorial Hall Museum Online: American Centuries . . . View from New England. Use the "Search the Digital Collection" link.

• CETI: AIIS - Miniature Painting Index American Institute of Indian Studies. From the Varanasi collection of the University of Pennsylvania, United States. Excellent slides of dress from India.

• Minnesota Historical Society: Photographs, Art, Posters, Fine Art Photographs. Visual Resources Database. A search on "Costumes" yields over two hundred artifacts.

• Native American Clothing

• Native Web. "Resources for Indigenous Cultures around the World." Excellent links.

• Rabbit Goody Historic Textiles. "Coverlets, Carpeting, 17th, 18th & 19th C. Reproduction Fabrics." The name and description says it all. Good links and photos.

• Carta Alta Venetian Mask Shop. Source for a variety of Venetian masks, theatrical and carnival.

• USITT's Wading On the Web

• World Wide Arts Resources -- Art Museums. Comprehensive listing of museums, many with clothing and cultural artifacts.
  

  Last updated 12/27/05

  ©Jack Wolcott 2005-2006