Beyond choosing authentic fabric and cutting patterns (which, really, should be step one if you are serious about authenticity), there are a lot of things that you can do to go from wearing funny clothes to looking like a historical person. In fact even if linen, wool, and silk are outside of your budget, by following these tips you can draw attention away from some minor inaccuracies.

1) Be consistent. Keep everything in one place and time. Don't wear a Norse coat over your cotehardie, or an Elizabethan style of necklace with your cyclas. Even if every single item you're wearing is completely documentable, if they are all documentable to different eras the final look will be unpleasing. Although this seems fairly obvious, I see people mashing things up all the time.

Don't fall victim to SCA fashion trends. You don't actually need to have a big black belt with a loop for a buckle. (I mean, okay, I do have one, but you don't need one.) Or if you're going to follow a trend ("Hey everybody! Let's all be Scythians!"), go all the way. Don't just add a funny hat to your regular garb.

Don't just throw trim on everything. Trim works for certain times and places, not all, and you may be shocked to learn that modern trim is, in fact, modern. Similarly, make sure whatever embellishment you use is appropriate to the outfit. Pick a class and stick with it. Wearing a rough peasant tunic? Don't put on a silk veil and lots of jewellery.

In all of these things, you will need to do a little bit of research to learn what goes together and what doesn't. This isn't to say you can't have outfits from all over the world spanning a thousand years of history! But each one of those outfits should be consistent within itself.

2) Dress it up! Add more layers, some accessories, and headwear. You can go to an event in a completely documentable linen gown that you sewed by hand, but if that's all you have on, you're still just going to look like a woman in a dress. Put a chemise on under that dress, and a cyclas over it. Or how about an apron dress! A shirt and pants are just a shirt and pants, even if the shirt is a nice poofy shirt and your pants are really slops. But tuck in that shirt, put on a doublet, and find yourself a hat, now you're looking sharp!

One of the biggest (and I think easiest) areas where a little goes a long way is headwear. When you add a veil, a wimple, a toque, hood, coif, etc. etc. etc. you instantly make yourself look more like a real medieval person and less like a modern person wearing baggy clothes. And this doesn't just apply to women, although that's often what people focus on. Men also will find that they look better with hats. Many men's hats are very simple, such as everyone's favorite "Robin Hood" type hat, hoods, coifs, etc. Putting something on your head is easy and it looks good -- so why don't more people do it? I have a theory: we don't really wear hats anymore. Hats just don't play the same role in our everyday dress that they did up until really quite recently. Since most of us don't really think about hats for our everyday dress, we don't think about them for our historical dress. But hats are wonderful and fun, and I promise you, putting something on your head (as long as you're within tip number 1!) will instantly improve your look. And I don't just say this as the daughter of a surprisingly famous hatter.

Accessorize, but do so appropriately. As with headwear, accessories are small but make a huge difference in your overall look. One great overlooked accessory for the Catholic persona is the paternoster. Put on a belt, the right brooches, some jewellery, etc. The idea here is to complete the outfit.

3) Three hard things: your shoes, your hair, your makeup (for ladies mostly). While there are a fair number of people who need to wear particular shoes, if that's not an issue for you, ditch the screamingly modern shoes, especially tennis shoes. I'll admit it: I don't own authentic shoes because I don't know how to make them and I can't scrape together the money to buy them. I understand why people don't go authentic (they're expensive, they're really different from modern shoes, etc.) Even if you aren't willing or able to go all the way, you can make a big difference just by switching to something like Birkenstocks or leather slippers or UGGs.

Makeup and haircut are areas that a lot of us probably aren't really willing to alter. I mean, I don't wear makeup, and I haven't cut my hair in... well, let's not talk about that. Choosing authenticity on this count isn't exactly a hardship for me, so maybe I can't convince the rest of you. But it really does make a difference in whether you look like a modern person wearing a costume or not. While makeup does have a facinating history, wearing modern-looking makeup will make you look... modern. Although we often talk about the unnatural colors end when the hair thing comes up, there are other ways that your hair might look very modern. If you'll forgive me, think about Xena: I mean, what is up with those bangs? The thing is, your haircut is probably important to you in your modern life. Perhaps revisit the section on headwear.

©Laurel Black