Children's Medieval Costumes - Fun at the Renaissance Fair

Admit it or not, parents love to dress up their children whether it is an everyday staple or a big renaissance fair. Although most of children's medieval costumes should best stay on the runway, it is amazing to note that a great number of children could easily glide down to reality and wear renaissance costumes with flair and ease.

Contrary to what is believed that in order to crop up a good medieval costume painstaking handiwork is needed, what most people fail to realize is that they can make children's' medieval costumes and fancy dresses through the use of little creativity and resourcefulness. But, if you choose to purchase a tailored and custom-made one, local boutiques and online stores are the best pit stop.

Here are few children's medieval costumes for your little boys and girls:

Boys Medieval Costume
A renaissance king costume, a crusader, a knight, and a musketeer tunic are some of the great selections for your little boy. If your boy is going to play renaissance faire king for a day, then a bright maroon or red cape with black velvet doublet and pants will certainly lent character to a renaissance king role.

Other accessories that include a crown and a renaissance sword replica of either Egyptian bast or a Napoleon ceremonial sword will absolutely complete your renaissance king gear.

Girls Medieval Costume
For little girls, a renaissance queen or princess will certainly be a crowd's favorite.

You may have a difficult time narrowing your choices, but what is perfect for little girls is one that will show off either a regal as a queen character or a sweet as a princess attitude. The choices of color can be gold with bright yellow panels, which will shine through the rich and vibrant texture of the fancy dress.

About the author: David L writes for ShopCompareCostumes.com and shares his interest in dressing up with internet readers. He's been writing for costume and Halloween blogs since August 2007 and has been a blog author since September 2005.

He shares his ideas and recommendations about Children's Medieval Costumes and other holidays at Shop Compare Costumes. Sign up to receive our free costume newsletter for exclusive discounts, coupon codes, and how-to articles on halloween costumes!

Renaissance Costumes - Choose the Best Attire

The creative mind's re-invention of Renaissance Costumes is considered a delight to the senses and a gorgeous feast for the eyes. This is the reason why a lot of festivity hosts opt for a renaissance inspired gathering more than any other concept.

Creating a renaissance period atmosphere is a bit challenging especially if you don't have any idea how to provide a real Renaissance look. So, for those who want to know how to choose the best garb for a Renaissance feast, here are few tips to combine high fashion, elegance, and stunning design in one:

1. Search through various Renaissance Costumes found in books

This pertains to different periods and cultures that have a Renaissance touch. Many different books have pictures of various costumes that can be a great concept for your choice. The global zeitgeist reads something like this: take what's indigenous in a specific renaissance period/culture and put in individual and innovative elements to come up with your own vibrant, creative costume idea.

2. The service of a local couturier

You can only have the best garb if you likewise have the best designer to inject fun and flair and design innovation to traditional renaissance costumes. Having your own designer will allow you to choose preferred patterns and styles where you can also ask for a designer's fashion sense in terms of mix of colors, creative embellishments, and fancy details.

3. Consider online resources

With the latest technology thriving each day, it is indeed possible to come across renaissance costume patterns, elegant headwear, and period accessories with just a simple search. So, if you're having a difficult time choosing which renaissance costume will fit you best, the internet will never fail to give you accurate, artistic, and whimsical costume idea.

David L writes for ShopCompareCostumes.com and shares his interest in dressing up with internet readers. He's been writing for costume and Halloween blogs since August 2007 and has been a blog author since September 2005. He loves playing characters and his creative side is most active when he's sharing his ideas with others.

He shares his ideas and recommendations about Renaissance Costumes and other holidays at Shop Compare Costumes. Sign up to receive our free costume newsletter for exclusive discounts, coupon codes, and how-to articles!

Handmade Medieval Toys At Bristol Renaissance Faire 2009

Chicago families visiting the Bristol Renaissance Faire can shop for handmade medieval toys that encourage imaginative play about magic and times past.

Bristol Renaissance Faire imaginative play

Designed to help visitors imagine that they have time traveled back to Elizabethan England, the Bristol Renaissance Faire lives up to its slogan (Where Fantasy Rules) with themed buildings and rides, costumed actors, and creative entertainment and interactive activities.

During their visit to the Renaissance, parents and children can tour the merchants in the Bristol Faire Marketplace to shop for lovely handmade artistic items and crafts that can be used as toys for imaginative play.

Children's medieval role-play toys

Visitors to this Elizabethan-era festival are invited to arrive already dressed for the part or to rent costumes once there. Parents can also purchase kid-sized costumes and accessories to dress their children up as fantasy, medieval, and renaissance characters.

Read complete article in Examiner.com

Choose Your Medieval Clothing Style To Attend A Medieval Wedding

Do you have an invitation to attend a medieval wedding? Don't know what should you wear? Before you spend time searching for costumes and purchase anything, you should first find out if the wedding style. Is the wedding style going to be a peasant style medieval wedding or lords and kings style medieval wedding? Showing up in different style and costumes would certainly be awkward.

The bride and groom may have a simple wedding ceremony outside in nature like a peasant and move on to a medieval feast like in a castle. In this case, you could choose and wear a costume that meets somewhat between the two classes, like well-to-do merchants, lesser nobles, royal knights, a lady-in-waiting, or else.

The couple may have an elaborate church wedding and then have their reception at some outdoor venue. Dressing down would be more appropriate. You can choose more fitting to the lower classes such as a serving wench, a lesser knight, or a villager.

Medieval Clothing styles changed with each generation. But, there are still some common elements through most of the styles.

The materials used for medieval clothing was heavier than it is today. If you plan on sewing your own costumes, keep in mind that pastel colors were outdated. The colors should be vibrant, rich and deep. Choose materials that contain deep blues, forest green, burgundies or chocolate browns.

Choose a suitable materials for the main outer garment such as velvet, brocade or damask. Take care in choosing the material pattern. Medieval clothing did not contain stripes, polka dots or small patterns. You can add leather laces, ribbons and other such ties to secure clothing. If you elect to wear peasant garb, choose attire made from linen, cotton or other materials so you will remain comfortable.

If you don't have much time to search around, maybe rent a medieval costume isn't a bad idea. However, it depends on your costume rental shop or a professional theatre whether they have some sort of medieval clothing that you wants. Your medieval costume selection may be limited. You can try purchasing a medieval costume online to save your time.

Family Fun In A Medieval Mode

Slashing swords, chain-mail armor, flowing gowns, pageantry, gold crowns - these scenes will greet spectators to Saturday's Highland River Melees, a series of battles set by the creek that wanders through City Park in Hagerstown.

The event features armored combatants who belong to the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a national organization promoting the history and culture of the Middle Ages.

Spectators are welcome to the event, which takes place all day Saturday.

It's easy to be captivated by the flash and crash of battle. But for longtime SCA member Eric Knibb, the group is about more than fighting.

"In itself, going out and hitting people with swords, it's a lot of fun," said Knibb, a Williamsport resident. "But the primary focus of the SCA is to re-create the positive aspects of the Middle Ages."

Chivalry, for one thing. Knibb said if a combatant loses a weapon during battle, their opponent allows them to pick it up before continuing. Courtesy is one aspect of medieval culture.

SCA members also re-create medieval foods, music, costumes, children's toys, tents, and more.

Knibb makes chain mail.

Under his adopted medieval Scottish persona, Fergus, Knibb makes shirts, armor and other chain-mail items and sells them to other SCA members or to the public. His product line includes pouches, shirts, jewelry, chandeliers and, um, bikini tops.

"Bikini tops are not medieval whatsoever," Knibb said, with a laugh. "I make them because people buy them."

Knibb has been making chain mail for 20 years. He met and married his wife, Glynis, through the group. And though he has no children of his own, he knows other families who are involved.

Read complete article in Herald-Mail.com

At Port Gamble Medieval Faire, ‘A Thousand Years of History to Draw On'

By Josh Farley

jfarley@kitsapsun.com

@DATELINE:PORT GAMBLE

From stitching coifs to throwing spears, one thousand years of history came to life Saturday in Port Gamble.

The 27th annual Medieval Faire, which continues today, showcased the best of life in the middle ages, minus death, disease and other drawbacks of the millennium.

"We take the best aspects of the Middle Ages, but we avoid things like the Black Plague or the Spanish Inquisition," said Eric Bosley of Port Orchard, also known as Eric De Dragonslaier.

About 1,000 members of the Society for Creative Anachronism — including 300 or so from Kitsap — camped out for the weekend to give visitors an idea of life long ago.

"Instead of just reading about it, you recreate it," said Silverdale resident Tammie Dupuis, who goes by Laurellen in her medieval life.

Visitors could watch glass blowing or dueling knights, as well as equestrian jousting and archery competitions.

"We have 1,000 years of history to draw on," Bosley said.

SCA members aren't bashful about their passion for all things medieval.

"People here don't think you're weird for wanting to learn new things," said Rycheza, aka Laura Henson of Suquamish, a member for 22 years.

Read complete article in Kitsapsun.com

Medieval and Renaissance Forum presents Ensemble Chaconne

Ensemble Chaconne, with mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal, will join the 30th Annual Plymouth State University Medieval and Renaissance Forum for a single public performance Friday at 8:15 p.m. The concert will be performed at Heritage Hall in Hall Residence Hall on Highland Street in Plymouth.

Praised for "vitality and character … style and verve" by MusicWeb International, Ensemble Chaconne is celebrating its 23rd season. Members of the ensemble are Peter H. Bloom, Renaissance flute; Carol Lewis, viola da gamba and Olav Chris Henriksen, Renaissance lute.

Ensemble Chaconne will perform "Measure for Measure: The Music of Shakespeare's Plays" at PSU, a sampling of the music Shakespeare's audiences would have heard, written by the leading composers of his day.

Selections are tied directly to the plays and include music from "As You Like It," "Measure for Measure," "Twelfth Night," "Henry V," "The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest," "Hamlet," "Othello," "Macbeth" and other plays.

Ensemble Chaconne has garnered consistent critical acclaim for its vivid concerts of Renaissance music on period instruments. They have developed themed program for organizations including Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Peabody Essex Museum, and have performed in concert halls across the U.S.

Guest artist Pamela Dellal has toured the U.S., Europe, Australia and Japan and has recorded for Arabesque Records, Artona, BMG, and others.

Tickets for Ensemble Chaconne's Plymouth performance are $12 for adults, $9 for seniors and students. Contact Professor Karolyn Kinane at 535-2402 or send e-mail to kkinaneplymouth.edu.

Taken From Citizen.com

St. Cloud Costume Shop Weathers Tough Economy

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — The aisles of Invincible Costume and Theatrical are crammed with a thousand stories, just waiting to be told.

Fuzzy, white bunny heads wait patiently in a row. A Chinese dragon peers down from a wall of wigs. Tinkerbell's dress soars silently above costumes for musketeers, cheerleaders, leprechauns and beasts.

Each garment stands ready, waiting for an opportunity to transform the mundane into the magical. Then the shop door bell rings. An ordinary person walks into the changing room and emerges as a hero or a villain, a cartoon character or a mobster.

"When they come in skeptical and they leave with a grin on their face - when they go out the door saying 'That was a lot of fun' - then I know I've succeeded," owner Michael Anderson said.

For 26 years, Invincible Costume & Theatrical has dressed the dreams of Minnesota. It designs, builds and rents theatrical costumes and accessories.

When Anderson started working at the shop, he had never made a costume.

An Air Force veteran and a graduate of the University of Iowa, he moved to St. Cloud in 1993 to be closer to his family. Although he held a degree in theater, he worked at a variety of jobs in other industries. Then in 1994 while volunteering at County Stearns Theatrical Company, he heard about a job opening at Invincible Costume and Theatrical. He decided to give it a try.

It proved a good fit.

"I love making things. I don't care what they are," Anderson said. "I've worked in leather, worked in plastics, worked as a carpenter and with concrete. I like the act of creation."

When former owner Sandra Oullette decided to sell the business in 1998, Anderson bought the company and set his sights on making the best costumes in the country.

Invincible Costume has thrived under Anderson's ownership, developing a reputation for historical accuracy and attention to detail.

"We don't rely on 50 feet and bright lights like most theatrical companies," Anderson said. "Our costumes have to look good not only onstage but close up. We can't do gold-painted macaroni."

Today Anderson has more than 7,000 costumes in every shape and size. There are furs, kilts, hoop skirts, military uniforms and wedding gowns. There are more than 1,000 hats and an entire shelf dedicated to go-go boots.

"I'm sure I own more powder blue tux coats than anyone else in the state," Anderson said.

Costumes rent for an average of $35, with the most expensive items available for $70. Anything they don't have, they make. So far, they've never been stumped.

"We make everything and we're very good at it," Anderson said.

Anderson is assisted in his work by seamstress Misty Rinkenberger, who helps build, alter and maintain costumes. During the busy Halloween season, eight seasonal employees join the Invincible team.

The shop serves customers across Minnesota and surrounding states. Some need a costume for a holiday or special occasion.

There are businesses and organizations that use characters to enliven events and promotions. And there are opera and theatrical companies looking to dress an entire cast.

Individual sales are highest at Halloween when Invincible rents out 500 to 1,200 costumes each year.

"That's all going out within a three-day period," Anderson said. "Imagine the laundry. One year we were cleaning costumes until Thanksgiving."

Holidays are also busy times, prompting orders from churches, retailers and restaurants. A leprechaun costume made its debut at the Sauk Rapids' Coborn's store on St. Patrick's Day. Now it's the Easter Bunny's turn. The shop's 20 bunny costumes are scheduled to appear at more than 60 Easter events.

Then there are the specialty orders, like the gold lame outfit and blond wig for a Mr. Montana Karaoke contest or the llama costumes for the United Way's Llama Llama Read-A-Rama.

But Invincible's main focus remains costuming theatrical productions. Anderson estimates he costumes about 70 productions each year. A recent production of "A Christmas Carol" required 120 period costumes.

"When you're truly reaching (the audience), when there's the willing suspension of disbelief, that's when we've been successful," Anderson said. "As Shakespeare said, 'The play's the thing.'"

Anderson is constantly building new pieces. Some are created to fill customer requests. Others are costumes for characters or projects that scratch a creative itch.

A replica of Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow costume from "Pirates of the Caribbean" has been in the works for years.

"People will kill to get this outfit," Anderson said. "I've had people begging me to get this costume finished. I work on it when I can."

Though it's still under construction, one look at the worn French naval coat, waistcoat and breeches quickly conjures the image of Depp's charming but dissolute character. That authentic appearance didn't come easy.

"It's a big project. I've already added and removed dye 10 times on the coat," Anderson said. "I'm trying to make it appear worn by salt water, by the bottle, by the effects of time, by having wine poured on it - by anything that would happen to a pirate."

Another pet project is a replica of an Elizabethan costume Gwyneth Paltrow wore in "Shakespeare in Love." Anderson has been working on the exquisite gown on and off for five years. It is made of fine silk and features a hand-stitched Elizabethan corset and a cartridge pleated skirt that's painstakingly decorated with pearls.

"The lace collar alone has 300 stitches in it," Anderson said. "I'd be willing to bet that I'm the only guy in the world that has made one of these during the Super Bowl."

With each new project, Anderson learns new skills. He studies contemporary and period patterns and searches for new construction techniques. And he is constantly on the lookout for new materials and tools.

"There are a lot of new, well actually old, techniques from the 1500s in this gown," Anderson said. "I love history. It's all about learning new things for me."

The last decade has been hard on the costume rental industry. The last recession started a wave of costume shop closures that continues to this day.

"Ninety percent of U.S. costume shops went out of business in the last 10 years," Anderson said. "We deal with a completely expendable resource. There is nothing that we sell that people need to live, so these are the things that go first (in budgets)."

The current recession isn't helping. According to Anderson, his 2008 Halloween sales were the lowest in 20 years.

"We made less money than we did in 1988," Anderson said. "But in '88 there was nobody else doing adult costuming."

Competitors have sprung up as well. Internet vendors and "30-day shops" that spring up like mushrooms a month before Halloween have prices Anderson can't beat, but he hopes the quality of their materials and workmanship will make customers think twice before buying them.

"A cheap costume from China is going to look really good on the Internet," Anderson said. "But when you see them up close you realize the kind of shoddy materials they're made of. They're really basically plastic."

Invincible has responded to these challenges by continuing to do what it does best: Building authentic costumes with quality materials.

"We don't do it if it's not right. Any costumes that goes out of here is a reflection on us," Anderson said. "We do inexpensive, but we don't do cheap."

Anderson also keeps a sharp eye out for new trends and new audiences. When Renaissance-themed weddings became popular, Invincible Costume was there to outfit wedding parties. When '70s and '80s parties became hip, they were ready to outfit guests. This year, they are beginning to see requests for wigs and accessories for anime events.

"Like any business, we're always looking for new markets," Anderson said. "We do guerrilla theater. We do it anyway we can get it done. Like in guerrilla warfare, we make up the rules as we go along."

So far his strategy is working. Unlike many businesses that are tied to the arts, Invisible Costume has survived for 26 years.

"We're not getting richer. We're just hanging in there," Anderson said. "I think anybody in the arts would understand that survival right now is somewhat of an incredible thing."

Taken From FortMillTimes.com

MoMA Exhibition of Drawings for Theater, Dance, and Opera Explores Visual Experimentation on the Stage

NEW YORK, NY.- Featuring approximately 150 drawings from The Museum of Modern Art's collection, Stage Pictures: Drawing for Performance investigates the work that results when artists design for theater, dance, and opera.

The exhibition highlights set and costume studies, as well as more abstract suggestions of light and mood, from the total theaters of the Ballets Russes and the Bauhaus, to Lincoln Kirstein’s formation of the New York City Ballet, to Pop performances and contemporary epic opera.

The works, many rarely on view, span a century of visual experimentation on the stage, demonstrating how artists have used drawing strategies to translate texts into dramatic mises-en-scène, articulate illumination and shadow, imagine the form and presentation of character, manipulate bodies in space, and express duration.

Such artists as Marc Chagall, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, Jim Dine, George Grosz, David Hockney, William Kentridge, Fernand Léger, Lyubov Popova, Diego Rivera, Oskar Schlemmer, and Robert Wilson are featured alongside career set and costume designers.

Several video projections of realized performances are also shown, complementing related drawings. The exhibition, on view March 11 through August 25, 2009, is organized by Jodi Hauptman, Curator, Department of Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art.

MoMA’s commitment to stage pictures dates to 1939, when Lincoln Kirstein, a colleague of MoMA’s founding director Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and the eventual founder of the New York City Ballet, gave his personal collection of performance-related books and ephemera to the Museum, establishing a Dance Archives that would, for a brief period in the mid-1940s, become a separate curatorial department.

Though the Museum’s Department of Dance and Theatre Design (later the Department of Theatre Arts) was short lived, the Museum continues to collect theater-related work today.

While the works in the exhibition vary in emphasis—from those with roots in folk traditions, machine aesthetics, or the mass media, to others that question the architecture of the stage, make abstract forms three-dimensional, or envision a total artwork on an epic scale—they all reflect a desire to create something new, to work across mediums, and to unify the arts.

Folk traditions were exploited and modified by artists associated with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, including Natalia Goncharova (Russian, 1881-1962), who created a city square inspired by the bold outlines of Russian icon painting and the abstract patterns of peasant embroidery for the 1937 Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo revival of Le Coq d’or. A study for this elaborate backdrop is on view in the galleries.

Inspired by the world of rapid industrialization, many artists focused on the workings of the machine, including Fernand Léger (French, 1881-1955) and Oskar Schlemmer (German, 1888-1943).

Commissioned for the 1922 Ballets Suédois production of Skating Rink, Léger’s mechanical costumes, once set in motion, reflected the artist’s sense that the rhythm of industry and the modern city’s everyday bustle were the most entrancing of spectacles.

For Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet, performed for the first time in its entirety in 1922, the artist created costumes that transformed the dancers from humans into mechanized puppets. Sketches of Schlemmer’s costumes are shown alongside a filmed reconstruction of the ballet from 1970.

Folk traditions merge with machine aesthetics in works such as Lyubov Popova's (Russian, 1889-1924) costume drawing for a 1921 Moscow production of Romeo and Juliet. For this design, Popova created a suit of armor out of hard-edged blue polygons resembling sheets of metal. The result is a costume that is both medieval and mechanical.

Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886-1957) emphasized the tension between industry and nature in designs for the 1932 Philadelphia Civic Opera Company's production of H.P. (Horsepower). In the drawings on view, costumes animate tropical fruit and gold and silver bars, while sets juxtapose flora and machines.

Pop art's impact, as well as the emancipating effect of 1960s Happenings on traditional performance, can be found in colorful collaged designs by Jim Dine (American, b. 1935) and David Hockney (British, b. 1937). Taking his cue from a Red Devil paint sample chart, Dine employed a rainbow palette in a series of drawings for a raucous 1966 performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

More recent projects by artists such as Robert Wilson (American, b. 1941) and William Kentridge (South African, b. 1955) show efforts to create multimedia productions on an epic scale.

On view is a recent acquisition, a drawing from the series Preparing the Flute (2005), Kentridge's backdrop design for Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, which he directed and co-designed in 2005.

To prepare for the production, the artist created black-and-white drawings that employ photography's positive and negative imagery to emphasize the opera's larger themes of darkness and light.

Just outside the galleries are two reconstructions of costumes by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) for the 1917 Ballets Russes production of Parade. Picasso created set and costume designs to accompany a scenario by Jean Cocteau, music by Erik Satie, and choreography by Léonide Massine.

Accompanying these large-scale works—including The French Manager (1917), which measures almost 9-feet tall—is a video excerpt of the Joffrey Ballet's 1973 revival of Parade.

Taken From ArtDaily.org

4 Interesting Facts About Renaissance Doctors and Medicine

Do you usually link Renaissance to advances in medicine? Typically, when we talk about the Renaissance period, we talk about an explosion of learning and creativity. From paintings to music, this was a tremendous time for the arts in particular.

However, the era of the Renaissance, which lasted from the middle 1400s until the 1700s, also featured major developments in European medicine. Here are some of the important facts surrounding the Renaissance period and medicine:

1. New knowledge and inventions improved medicine

A flurry of new knowledge and inventions helped to advance medicine quickly, during the Renaissance. There were no instruments yet to observe bacteria, and thus create a need for cheap urbane scrubs.

However, diagrams of the human body and the printing press both had a huge influence on the world of medicine. Thus, doctors had a better comprehension of how the human body functioned, than during any previous era in Europe's history.

2. Galen was no longer king

During the previous Middle Ages, the medical world considered Galen's writings to be infallible. Galen was an ancient Greek living in Rome, who had developed the concepts of Hippocrates, "The Father of Medicine."

However, during the Renaissance, doctors took a more practical and academic approach to training in their profession. Medical students studied from books with realistic diagrams of humans.

In addition to better books, doctors-in-training also had access to more of them, thanks to the invention of the printing press. In fact, universities even permitted students to dissect humans, towards the end of the Renaissance. This practice had previously been limited to animals.

3. Science began to supersede spirituality

During the Renaissance, people still held to some spiritual reasoning regarding diseases. For instance, people were unaware that bacteria existed, and could spread from person-to-person. However, logic became king, due to a new wealth of knowledge available, and an efficient way to distribute it faster-the printing press.

In addition, the training for surgical procedures greatly improved. Apprentices would learn surgical techniques, from an active surgeon. Interestingly, universities themselves failed to supply doctors-in-training with these skills. Nevertheless, the improvements in textbooks about human anatomy significantly boosted the complexity of the surgeries that doctors did.

4. Many did not embrace advances in medicine

While the Renaissance ushered in a new era of medical knowledge and skills, not everyone was impressed. During the Renaissance, home remedies remained a vital aspect of medical treatment, for many people.

In fact, some people still sought treatments from local shaman who lacked formal training in the medical profession. Also, many "old-school" doctors and the Catholic Church still adhered to the teachings of Galen. However, within time, medical advances during the Renaissance would revolutionize the whole professional.

The Renaissance was clearly an era of enlightenment and developments. Besides the fantastic output in the arts, the medical profession flourished as well. While doctors were yet unaware of bacteria or the need to wear scrubs during surgeries, they were nonetheless learning. Essentially starting with the Renaissance, spiritual doctors were becoming scientific doctors!

Brent McNutt enjoys talking about cheap urbane scrubs and cheap landau scrubs as well as networking with healthcare professionals online.