Garb: Some thoughts on a troublesome word.

There is a word at the top of this page that carries a lot of baggage in our community. I'm speaking of "Garb". It seems odd to me to spend a lot of time discussing a simple noun that has been around since at least 1580, which was used by Shakespeare in Hamlet and Coriolanus to describe the fashion of a country (sometimes in reference to language, sometimes attire). But discuss it I do. 

In fact, in costuming forums and in real life, I am constantly called upon to defend my use of the word by those who hate it with a passion that I find surprising. And of all the linguistic eccentricities for which I might be called to the carpet, why choose garb?

"Because it's a word that describes quite accurately what I'm doing here" doesn't seem enough for most of my challengers.

garb (plural garbs)
1. A type of dress or clothing.
2. fashion, style of dressing oneself up
3. (figuratively) a guise, external appearance

Seems simple enough. We need a word to describe the fashions and styles of another time, to differentiate from the fashion and styles of our time. So we reach for a suitable word and run with it.


And trip over all the people trying to stop us.

Last week, I sat back and watched a group that I used to belong to turn itself inside out in an argument about the use of the term 'garb' on this blog and others. Mostly -- though I went unnamed -- it was clear that the instigator was upset by my use of the term in another forum. The teeth-gnashing, and eye-poking that ensued among partisans on both sides was truly something to see.

It's just a word, people... or is it? In search of historical context, I went looking for the source.

I reached out to Jon DeCles, who was there when both the Society of Creative Anachronism was born and when Phyllis Patterson was struggling to bring the Renaissance Pleasure Faire to life and asked him what he remembered of the use of the term "garb" -- this is what he said:

I can recall the use of 'garb' in the format of 'medieval garb' being used in the earliest days of the Society for Creative Anachronism, i.e., the late 1960s. The point was to make a distinction between 'clothing' and 'costume.' The distinction was an important one because costumes didn't have to have pockets or fasten with period fasteners, they just had to look good from a distance. It was an important point because the SCA got many people from Science Fiction Fandom who were used throwing together splendid costumes for one use at a masquerade ball at a convention, often made from old stuff they got at a thrift store but often bearing little resemblance to anything 'period.'

I still remember Phyllis Patterson struggling with getting people to understand, at her Renaissance Pleasure Faires in those days, that hot pink satin hennons were not characteristic of the Elizabethan Age.

(Thanks, Jon for taking some time out of your day to answer an out-of-the-blue question for me.)


Jon's note confirms what I have always assumed: that the application of the term "Garb" or "Renaissance/Medieval Garb" has always been used to differentiate between clothing and the one-use costumery of the masquerade ball or the October traipse through a corn maze. It's a bit of jargon we've adopted to set our costuming apart from other sorts of costuming.

One of my missions with this blog and as a costumer in general is to make this pastime accessible to all.  And to do that I have to get newcomers past the ingrained cultural baggage that 'costume' has in the United States at the dawn of the 21st century. Because we are combating an implicit association between the word "costume" with the word "Halloween".

If your goal is to become a costume historian, I pray you, don't use the term. The academes get quite sniffy about nomenclature. If you are talking to new recruits to this pastime and want to sidestep the first thought that pops into their head when you say 'costume' (no matter how anthropologically correct it might be) then pick a different word. Any word. Honestly, we've so debased the coin of 'costume' that anything else is better. I don't really care which one you use as long as you don't stomp on someone else's choice.

From where I sit, it's a lot like freaking out when someone uses the word 'dude' in modern life instead of 'fellow' or 'guy'. Oh, it happens -- I hear people get mad about it all the time, but I don't understand it. It's hard not to think that some folks just enjoy being annoyed by things they cannot control. Garb has become ingrained in our subculture, it is part of how we differentiate between the clothing we wear in the 21st century and the clothing we wear when we step into the past.

Here's the thing... There has always been a bit of a noticeable rift between reenactors and historians, which has led to a desire in many to strive to 'be taken seriously by the establishment'.  And on a fundamental level, I think that this desire to abandon anything that is specific to reenactor culture arises from that. When the academes sniff at our efforts, it hurts a little. I work at a college, I've seen the looks directed my way when I talk about how I spend my free time.

If you're a reenactor and a certified costume historian (or any kind of historian) you are standing astride two worlds, increasing the friction felt from things that are specific to the culture of one and disdained by the other.  Though that is changing. I believe that the rise of 'Experimental Archaeology' like the folks in From a Green Valley can be tracked back to the assimilation of reenactors into the historical fold. The idea that historical lives can be understood without directly experiencing them has been eroded. By us.

So if you're walking the academic road, I salute you. Within your world, I certainly understand that those looks are troublesome. I feel for you. I honestly do. But anytime that leads you come after me, to make it my problem, you've crossed a line.

Why anyone cares what I call my stuff is anyone's guess. I use garb, attire, clothing, and other words 
interchangeably, because as an advanced user of the English language, I know that's how it's supposed to work. Telling me that one of those words is 'bad' comes across as rank hipsterism.

Whether you intended it that way or not, that's how you are coming across: "Garb is so yesterday; we say 'attire' now, loser."

Having long ago set aside use of the term "garb nazi" to describe the holier-than-thou costumer and for a long time I've been using 'garb snark'. Maybe it is time to set aside that term now and start using 'Costume Hipster'.


I implore all of you: Go forth from this place and be nice to one another. Use all of your words. Use the correct words. Hell, make up some words if you want to. Don't just use the ones that the cool kids tell you are cool today. 

Anyway, that's my two cents. Don't spend it all in one place.

- Scott

Men's Petticoats (Probably not what you think)

In my last few posts I mentioned that I was working out a pattern for "a man's petticoat."

This arose from my constant consternation with the insistence by reenactors and faire costumers alike that a man of the 16th century would not go about in his shirtsleeves. I cannot count the number of people who have insisted that no one would be caught dead in a sleeveless jerkin or similar garment with only the linen of his shirt covering his arms.

Image from Breviary of Eleanor 

of Portugal  via hayinart.com

This belief persists despite the visual record of laborers about their tasks in what appears to be a jerkin and no doublet.  Even with the 'mini ice age' the temperatures were only a few degrees colder than now on average. The winters were quite severe throughout the period, but that doesn't mean that summer never came. The Elizabethans were not idiots, I would argue; if it was hot, they would take their coats off.

Sometimes they would take off a good deal more than that.

Note how in the Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal, as the seasons progress, the workers begin to dress appropriate to the weather. It's not much of a logical leap as there's no reason to think that they wouldn't.

Yet the belief persists that they were swaddled in cloth toes-to-nose from birth until death.

I've occasionally been able to bury my opponents in historical images of the bare-armed to the point where they'll admit that men stripped down in the throes of labor but immediately covered up to the eyeballs once more once the task was done. Weather or no weather.

Whether or not this is true is difficult to prove, but recent developments argue strongly that for certain professions and classes (notably laborers and sailors) the petitcoat was the dominant item of dress for all of their daily activities.

All of this came to light last month, a Kentwell reenactor and costumer Julia Barrett took up the flag when she approached a bunch of historical costumers via the Elizabethan Costuming Facebook group for feedback on a scholarly article about men's petticoats she was writing. Her article launched a very interesting avalanche of feedback and discussions about a little-discussed article of men clothing of the 16th century.

Turns out I had been misinterpreting those pictures I've been pointing to: Those men weren't going about in their jerkins, they were wearing petticoats.  These are enumerated in their wills as well as in the visual records I mentioned.

Now, before your 21st century mind wanders down its pre-programmed path toward images of manly knights in the frilly undergarments of women in later periods, we need to nail down exactly what we mean by "petticoat."

In this case, the petticoat means exactly what its French root would imply: Petite coat a small coat. In later centuries we would come to know these as "waistcoats" and to save modern listeners from confusion, some of us have vacillated back and forth between referring to them as petticoats and waist coats.

The purpose of the petticoat is twofold: as warmth and as a garment for a man to tie his hosen to. The could be made of any material and in fact some of the extent petticoats are knitted such as the DeMedici garment in the Stibbert Museum . This probably sprang from garments like the 'pourpoint' worn under armor (partly as an attachment point for plates) by medieval knights and in fact many reenactors think that the wearing of them fell out of fashion long before Elizabeth took the throne.

In Tudor Tailor, these are discussed in a sidelong fashion, and the 'Side-Fastening Doublet' pattern in that book is essentially a man's petticoat (Indeeds, one of the people who gave feedback and suggested additional resources to Julia for her article was Ninya Mikhaila.)

Ms Barrett begs to differ, and presents a compelling case from both the visual record and the written wills of the period.  I can only hope it pushes back the idea that the Elizabethans were not smart enough to take off their coats when the weather got hot.

Here is the Article's home site http://clothingtherose.co.uk/research-articles/
The page hosts several articles (opens/downloads as a .PDF file) listed in the righthand column.

Doublet, Jerkin or Jack?

Here’s something interesting I didn’t know until I looked it up today… the word ‘Jerkin’, which causes so much confusion in period, is the newer of the two words. I have – to this point – always operated under the assumption that they were two regional words for roughly the same thing that eventually grew to such commonplace usage that they lived on to confuse future costumers.

From the Oxford English Dictionary… (In order of precedence by first appearance)

“Jack: A short and close-fitting upper garment of men & women; a jacket. […] Ultimate origin uncertain, but app. French: thought by some to be identical with the proper name Jacques, perhaps as originally worn by the peasantry.” First documented appearance: 1375

“Doublet: A close-fitting body-garment, with or without sleeves, worn by men from the 14^th to the 18^th centuries (rarely applied to a similar garment worn by women)” it goes on to say… “The doublet had many changes of fashion, being at one time with, at another time without, short skirts. In its various sleeved and sleeveless forms, it was the prototype of the modern coat, jacket and waistcoat.”

“Jerkin: A garment of the upper body worn by men in the 16^th and 17^th centuries; a close-fitting jacket, jersey or short coat often made of leather.” First documented appearance: 1519.

So… there you go then.

A jacket is a unisex item of utility, thought to denote a peasant garment of French extraction. The Doublet is a man’s garment, with or without sleeves. (Note that the women’s ‘Doublet’ bodice was apparently rarely referred to as such in period documents, but no citations noted.) And a Jerkin is a later appellation most often referring to a leather garment, though bandied about quite a bit to cover jerseys and just about anything else. One of the citations (from 1599 by Thynne notes: “A common garment dalye used such as we call a jerken or jacket without sleeves.” (emphasis added by me) so at least by 1599, in common parlance, the ‘jerken’ (sic) had become synonymous not with the doublet, but with the jacket as a utilitarian garment.