Renaissance Faire Fashion: Cleavage and Kilts

Renaissance faires and festivals are famous for the era-specific games, food, store front styles, drama, music and culture. Most notably, a faire would not be complete without the costumes of the faire employees and patrons. Dress ranges from historically accurate (referred to 'garb' instead of costume) to fantastic and outlandish.

Many faire-goers confess to feeling more comfortable in corsets or kilts than in contemporary attire. Reasons for this range from 'it's just me' to 'I was Queen Guinevere in a past life,' and the festival attire reflects those comments and everything in between. Some outfits are notoriously daring, bold, and sexy. Wenches, pirates, and Highlanders freely roam faire grounds, touting their lustiness, bustiness, and lack of drawers, respectively.

At the Michigan Renaissance Festival held annually in Holly, Michigan, the Guinness Pub is a popular hangout for the most rambunctious and scandalously dressed faire patrons and employees. With Irish flags, fine drink, and live music adding to the flavor of the pub, you'll find lecherous leprechauns, bawdy barmaids, vicious Vikings, and pirate men, complete with 'compasses...pointing north' and accompanying devilish grins. These patrons, often in persona to accompany their outfits, mingle with scantily clad fairies and dark angels.

While this behavior may seem a bit shocking initially, before long you may wonder exactly how to dress in sexy renaissance style. Even the casual faire patron becomes entranced by the renaissance festival subculture enough to try on an appealing article of clothing.

For men, there are a few primary elements to an outfit. Ladies find these items particularly appealing:

• Leather gloves, boots, belts, and swords (if allowed at your faire: some faires will allow peace-tied weapons)
• Nobleman's attire (indicative of wealth)
• Kilt and sporran
• Regalia indicative of a particular heritage
• Slightly unlaced peasant style shirt
• Long hair and facial hair
• A pipe or walking stick