Do you want to look like a viking?
This site is for you who are reenacting the Viking age and want to know more about how people dressed then, but find it hard to find trustworthy information and easy-to-use patterns.
There are many prejudices around how people looked and dressed during the Viking age. The sources we have show that the truth is far from the black leather, fur over the shoulders and high boots we often see. But the sources are not easily accessable for everyone and to recreate clothing from them requires deep studies and knowledge in both pattern creation, several languages and clothing in adjacent time periods and geographical areas.
Our patterns are intended to help you so that you don’t have to do that work and still be able to sew clothes which will give you both a sense of coming closer to the people in the Viking age and to look like a viking to other people, as well as that is possible. Here you can find patterns for most of the garments we have evidence for from the Viking age in Scandinavia and in other Viking settlements around Europe, with tips about suitable fabrics and colors. All our patterns are based on available sources in the form of archaeological finds, depictions and texts, and when needed they are complemented with information from adjacent time periods and areas to make the reconstructions as faithful as possible.
Who are we?
My name is Susanna Broomé and I have spent a lot of my free time with recreating the Viking age (often called reenactment) for more than thirty years. I am not an archaeologist but during all this time I have still studied archaeological literature to really understand how people may have dressed during the Viking age. My patterns have also been around during the last thirty years, but I have regularly evolved and updated them so that they are aligned with the new knowledge the research community has collected during this time. As a part of that I have also studied adjacent time periods, especially the Vendel period (the time period directly before the Viking age) and sources from geographical areas which have influenced the Scandinavian Viking age culture.
Except for me I have help from my family with running this webshop. The pattern booklet about Nalbinding is developed in collaboration with my friend Iduna Pertoft Sundarp. She has contributed with the contents and I with the design. Except for that Iduna has taken most of the cover photos and some of my reenactment friends have volunteered to be models.