Viking Women's Fashion: A (Very!) Basic Guide 

"I am not a primary source... I am barely a tertiary source." Statements like this are how I know I can actually *trust* someone presenting me with information.

Oooooh man those pictures of a pleated apron dress ? They make my little perfection sewing heart bounce. So neat. So pretty. Plz make.

Yay for floofiness in a Viking lady's dress. It would be like wearing a beautifully warm blanket around your legs all the time. The brooches sound kind of like an early version of a chatelaine. Thanks for sharing. So cool. Take care. Happy New Year!

My persona is 10th century Icelandic. I made a linen basic under tunic and a linen apron dress with side gore's. I have rabbit skin lined linen York hood for warmth and a light weight. My belt is tablet woven wool (my craft is textiles).

PLEASE do a video making an apron dress! I would enjoy that so much!

Thank you for this! And as for how I wear my belt with my women's kit...I don't like looking like I'm wearing a sack, and the dresses are very sack like, so the belt give a waist. Knowing that people can't tell me I'm wrong to do that is rather handy!

An often overlooked practicality of headwear was to hide or prevent catching head lice.

Why would women not wear belts? That was the most stupid thing I ever heard! Also, about the different shape of brooches. You probably know this, but the different shapes seems to be different fashion in different areas. Like the animal heads are mostly found on Gotland etc. So if one want to really go nerdy on that there is a lot of fun things just about the oval brooches. :)

I wouldn’t say that I was missing this topic, but hey, I’m glad you went there. I mean there’s lots of female oriented historic clothing, but few that cover the period that you do with the historic rigor that you apply, so it was really interesting to hear your take. I also think that making a dress would be very cool just to get another take on construction and a different style etc(yes I watched Liz’s videos on her Herjolfsness dress....‘‘twas great !!). There’s not a lot of documentary/archaeological evidence for cross dressing, Thor notwithstanding (but then gods always got to do the titillating things that ordinary humans couldn’t, didnt they) but there was a mention in a saga(sorry can’t remember which one or what country it was) where a woman sues for divorce from her husband on the grounds of cross dressing. If they had laws relating to it, it must have been a “thing” often enough to be noticed one infers. The Viking attitude towards women as their attitudes to most things, seemed to be based in pragmatism. Yes women had rights....well, when the men were off a’viking or fishing, or trading(and yes there were female traders too), “someone” had to keep the farm running, the animals fed, milked, slaughtered, butchered and the meat prepared and stored, butter and cheeses made, to sow the crops, harvest and store the grain, as well as the traditional “womanly” tasks like caring for children, cooking, weaving, sewing etc. if a little legal power made them able to do these things better, then most men were happy to allow them those powers. They generally, still considered women, lesser beings tho. Yes their woman had much more freedom than most.....but that’s not saying a lot in medieval Europe, where “most” had no freedoms at all.

And I can imagine them using naalbind hats in the winters up here in the North xD YES! Make a whole Viking Woman kit and let us be with you on the journey! :D I have been thinking of making a Viking kit but I fell down the rabbit hole on Finnish/Baltic style of the apron dress in the same era.... would they count in being Viking? xD

I love those last few seconds is just all of us coming up with a new project despite the 20 incomplete ones sat around

My first time in Viking kit, I borrowed a male friend’s wool tunic to wear under my wool apron dress! Slightly short, but it was covered by the apron and worked perfectly.

An interesting thing I saw about the history of women's clothing was focused on maternity clothing. Multiple youtubers and articles talked about how (with the exception of the extraordinarily wealthy) ALL women's clothing was maternity clothing. For centuries, in basically all of Europe, women wore dresses that had room for bloating, hormonal weight gain, and pregnancy. The same dress that fit you at 40 weeks of pregnancy, would simply be tied tighter about you as you lost the baby weight.

Interesting to learn that the equipette was attached to the brooches at the shoulders. I always thought it was attached to the belt.

Very interesting that I found another RU-vid channel about this same thing when I came across your post. It is about a smocked Viking dress

Well done! I'd add nettle fabric to the fiber party, but that's a fairly new discovery :)

I would love to see you make a viking dress!!! I love the nails!

Thank you for this! This video is really useful. My first foray into historical costuming is a male and female version of Loki. I've got the basic design down for the male version, but had no idea where to start for the female version. I'll go have a look at those references you left to continue my research. Thank you again. Go make yourself that dress! :)

I'm here from Bernadette. I love everything medieval clothing. Thank you for this video

Linen chemise/shirts were worn under the wool. Up to the Little Ice Age (c 1200 A.D) when the world was a tad warmer linen was commonly worn both under and over garments. After the onset of the Little Ice Age, linen was more difficult to get--vs them growing it--but still nicer to wear against the skin than straight wool. Commonest dye materials were weld (yellow), woad (light blue), madder (orangey reds) and all the exhaust dye bath colors that come from them. Yes, lichens give all sorts of colors from pale to vibrant golds, browns, reds, purples, olive greens. Then there were the imported dye stuffs.

Whether the covering of hair was compulsory or not, in a time without shampoo it keeps the hair and head much cleaner.

As a handspinner, I would assume that women may have used their belts to hold a waist distaff (which holds the wool or linen they are spinning so both hands are free for the actual work). They certainly used belted distaffs in the later medieval period. Spinning is absolutely essential in this period, and it’s very time consuming. All Viking women would have been spinning on a drop spindle every moment they were not doing something else with their hands, and probably were constantly stowing the spindle and taking it out again, all day long. A belt over the dress would be perfect for that.

YES! MAKE THE DRESS!!! It’s lots of fun (just rectangles & triangles). For people looking to buy ready made Viking women’s clothing I can recommend Ylva the Red (in Australia), & Othala Craft (Europe), they both are very much into clothing based on archeological finds. Personally I love researching & making the clothing myself, but not everyone has this same privilege.

A sarafan can be made of pleated wool, adapts for breastfeeding and pregnancy without change. It has shoulder straps and can be made most simply out of 2 rectangles gathered and two straps. It can be adapted to a slender form by use of a belt or apron. underneath it is worn a linen shift! I reckon it is the survivor of the apron dress.

I can tell you from being a fair skinned person that i wear head coverings when at events to help keep from being burnt as sunscreen doesn't really work but spf fabric does. so it could be if they don't need to wear it for other reasons that could be. now obviously i am drawing this hypothesis from my own experience but it is a simple reason

Using a bit of logic Wool is going to make the most sense for the fabric given the elements, and maybe silk because both conserve warmth. And with the gores in the side this would mostly be to provide easier movement when just living your life. It’s also probably to conserve fabric since it’s such a hot commodity given that it’s hand woven so it’s also on a certain width to the ‘bolt’. It’s always interesting to think of clothes in the context of the people living in it! Fashion History gives such an amazing insight into the people of the time.

Fascinating! Thank you. The pleated wool dress that you show reminds me of smocking.

Everytime i think viking wear i think of how to train your dragon. So my head had dragons flying around it this entire video lol.

This was really helpful. Now, where's the video on Viking embroidery? We ladies need to decorate the things!

I don't know when or where I read this, but on the subject of women's belts: Imagine you're wearing a loose, unbelted apron dress. Now lean over. The dress will hang loosely away from the body. Now imagine you're bending over a cooking fire. That loose, unbelted dress will drape into the fire. An unbelted dress is just too impractical in such an environment and no one is going to go around like that in a day-to-day manner. Do it! Make yourself a dress! I bet you'll be warm and cosy!

oh brilliant. now you have reminded me that I wanted to learn how to needle bind... I even bought that blasted needle made from rendeer antler the last time I was in helsinki in the open air museum on seuasaari...

Some of Bernadette Banner's videos on pockets talk about sewing slits in the dress, under which a belt was worn with pockets hanging from it, I believe. This is of course from a much later era, but it wouldn't surprise me if this was also the case back then. Keeping pockets (which weren't attached to the actual dress) underneath the dress is good for keeping things secure. They'd need to be hung from something, and the apparent lack of pictures of belts suggests to me that this may have been the case. Would love any info on pockets!

Happy New Year! (*cough*). Um. . . Linen chemise, Jimmy? You forgot it in the beginning. You mentioned "linen under wool" towards the end, but didn't include how. Good luck on your Monks garment (no hood).

"Baby it's cold outside..." wear your wool!

you are so lovely, it's been wonderful and informative to discover your channel. you are going to rock that viking dress big time, and I'd love to see it !

That beard though. It's really awesome that you did a woman's dressing guide.

I just want to say, as a smol trans man, that your painted nails have made me feel better about gender than anything else in the last day ._.

I would say in regards to “The women’s Waist-Belt”. If you’re a women with an Outfit that is complete head to toe (Apron dress, Hose, under-dress etc.) & its Authentic to the Norse/ Viking period. What I would try (especially if you have more than 1 type/style of dress’) is: Dress in a complete outfit. And then experiment with the belt. Try it under the dress, over the dress, And see if there’s any obvious functional uses for the belt that stand out to you. And inversely keep an eye out for any instances were the belt is extra uncomfortable, difficulty to wear or possibly redundant. Also: Take note of, Whether the belt interferes in any way with any specific: Styles or Looks. That you are familiar with. Example might be: If it interferes with a Certain feature of a dress. For instance: Does the waist-belt interfere with How the Dress is Accentuating a part of a women’s body that it is supposed to accentuate or Does it accentuate parts of the body that it shouldn’t for that time period. Doing these experiments might give you some better indication for how Norse-women May or May Not have worn waist-belts in their time.

The Welsh Viking, would love to hear you talk about medieval Cornwall

I commented on your men's video asking for this, I just hadn't found it yet. Thank you. ^_^

Sorry for the third comment, but do you have a po box or somesuch? I do a lot of nålbinding, especially fine gauge, and I'd love to send you something cos I always do better if I'm making something for someone and I am always looking for project ideas. If you have a preference and would like me to make some norse object for you that could be of use, let me know!

Maybe you could team up with one of the dress historians on YT and design a dress you think is up to the current scientific knowledge? Would be awesome to see someone recreate such a dress (and show off the skills needed for pleating like this!). Bernadette Banner come to mind

Very interesting, thanx !!!

This has been really fun to watch, and yes helpful as well. I have a York hood in white linen, its good for keeping migranes away in warm windy weather. I'm not portraying a wealthy woman so linen is the most logical choice for me. It would be really cool too see if you end up doing an apron dress ^^

Thats so great ! Very well done !!! ☺️

Another well done guide. Thank you for it. Put my name on the Jimmy making and wearing womens garb list.

luistari.fi/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/em%C3%A4nt%C3%A4.jpg This is the Matron of Eura dress from Finland. Recreated from what was found from viking age grave in Eura. Yes, Finland and Norse areas are different, but close enough to get a glimpse of how viking age northern women clothing might have generally looked.

I believe I translated some bits of the Eunuch back as a Latin literature exercise in high school... not really funny, but rather interesting

Why would you cover your hair if you didn't have to? If you ask women who were farmers in the sixties they will likely point out this: You're going to go care for the animals, and the barn smell will get in your hair if you don't cover it up. So you saw rural European women covering their hair as a matter of practicality into the 60s and 70s, when showers became so common that cleaning your hair was a simple task. If you, like me never has had long hair, it's not something you think about, but it makes perfect sense once it's mentioned. So even if you're a single young woman living on your parents' farm, you're still going to have some form of hair cover to provide cover from the odeur de barn, so to speak.

Thank you for making this video! :D

I am deeply allergic to wool. So I think it’s straight up linens for me. I am very very interested in a pattern for a proper Apron dress. I feel like I could sew this quite well.

YES MAKE THE DRESS!!!!

Is it possible that the head scarf existed also to protect their hair from getting dirty?

Any knowledge as to why they did not just have the straps sewn to the dress? The broaches seem like they could get in the way, be heavy or uncomfortable for long periods, and depending on the work you are doing, as well as being costly... Was this purely for aesthetics or status? Love this channel!

So did you ever make that apron dress?

I'd recommend to not wear a belt over your apron dress. It's generally considered to be a more formal dress and therefore you don't need your daily things like purses and knives with you. You can hang, for example, your knife and more accessoires on your big brooches and carry a bag for the rest. Also a belt kind of ruins your sillouhette in an apron dress, but improves it on a regular one. Speaking of bag: get yourself a nice bag with wooden handles. I'm not aware of any belt bags for women found in graves or seen in pictures. It's pretty sparce for men as well in some regions. We have lotsa small ones, but these won't fit things like your phone, wallet, etc. Lastly I'd recommend using leather straps with a buckle or just thongs to hold up your hoses. We have evidence for that in later periods and no-one's gonna see them anyways. If you're planning on getting a nice pair of breeches (cuz that's pretty much the only form of underwear we have), then you can of course just attach your hoses to them. For the sake of comfort tho, I would only advise to do that if your hoses are very high.

Jimmy did you ever sew yourself a dress? I'm coming back to this video again whilst sewing a drab olive wool cloak by hand for the hubby ..

What about Pockets? What about bags? Did they have pockets? 🥺

Something to consider. Fabric and clothing was incredibly expensive. Women’s bodies were constantly changing shape due to pregnancy and breastfeeding. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that their clothes would be tightly fitted. In fact, consider that the front of the shift might have had an open center seam, perhaps with ties or lacing. This would have accommodated pregnancy and breastfeeding quite handily. The apron dress open at the sides would have been ideal for this purpose.

I would also suggest not wearing the beads and brooches for everyday clothing. Having worn and worked in 9th century women's clothing, they get caught on *everything*. For my everyday kit I wear a lien kirtle (cause no one would wear wool next to their skin except a monk) and wool dress which is just the same pattern as my kirtle but made out of wool. Cap to keep my hair out of the way, belt with pouch and keep my drop spindle tucked in my belt as well.

they might have used nettle as well to make wool

All I think of when I hear wool...itchy!! But if I lived in that type of climate, I may be inclined to wear layers of wool myself. 😬

Did you end up making your self a dress? I'm currently making myself both a woman's and a man's basic set up.

You look nice with long hair 😊

Can you recommend any female enactor RU-vid channel? And you really should make an apron!

Oop, just commented on the other videos asking for ladies clothes 😁

Id be wary of the whole “simple” dress. All the periods we have existing clothing from where women sewed dresses for themselves by hand, in time periods when material was expensive and thus clothing was very limited - outer garments tended to be very decorated. Why sew your one dress and spent countless hours sewing it and then leaving it simple? Inner/under clothing yes. But outer clothing tended to display embroidery, beading, pleating, etc. it was a place to display your talent for sewing. Even with limited funds you could decorate for little added cost. Humans have always tried to express themselves with clothing

A woman's dress is just a longer version of a man's tunic, so you've definitely got the skills. You could dress up as Thor dressed up as Freya.

When you said "I have never made any Viking women's clothing for myself" I just knew that was soon to change!😂💗 Lets all do a sew-along: apron dresses for all!

Every time I hear about Viking women's clothing, I remember that one weird historian (whose name I cannot be bothered to recall) who tried to suggest and put forward the idea that turtle broaches/oval broaches were nipple piercings. and that. Viking women would hang their wool dresses from these pins and piercings because reasons or something. I don't entirely remember what they were trying to say about it, but I still get a laugh that anyone could think that a wool dress could hang from a piercing like that and not just ruin everything in moments.

My aversion to re-enactment clothing being made of man-made materials is primarily safety based. I love cosplay, but seeing someone get too close to an open flame, even a candle, while wearing polyester or rayon is terrifying. Please don't do it, no one wants a trip to the burn unit.

I feel safe assuming women's belts were worn outside their dresses, for a number of common-sense reasons: hanging kit from the waist belt, getting the dress out of the way for work, looking not like a tent, and better distributing the weight of the wool dress.

MAKE THE DRESS! MAKE A DRESS, MODEL THE DRESS! Want to see Jimmy sew the dress, please.

I love how you talk about the thinking and research behind reenactment and historical interpretation, instead of just a list of rules - it's really engaging and invites people in to think and learn and make their own decisions!

As a female viking reenactor - thank you for doing an evidence based video about this subject. You make many great points here, and I like that you encourage people to keep it simple and base their clothes on actual sources. I just found your channel, and will look at some more of your videos now. And also... yes, you should totally make a viking dress! :D

"Linen under wool" I recite, "avoid cotton" even though I've never and don't plan on making a reenactment viking age outfit for myself. That's a sign of a good video

How my history loving butt got here I do not know, but am I totally down with a handsome welsh Viking-man telling me about Viking fashion.

re. Belts being under or over the dress, did the buckles and strap ends we’ve found in women’s graves consist of decorative castings and patterns? Or plain and undecorated? A mixture of both? I feel like an elaborately designed buckle wouldn’t be worn under a dress where nobody could see it. Just a thought though I’m no expert

So, no leather bustiers? Or loosely braided dredlocks? How about skin tight leather pants? Oh wait, I did see you video/rant about the costumes in The Vikings TV series. ;)

Please, with all my heart, make the apron dress. That's the wholesomeness we need going into 2021.

Jim...the description of the silhouette as "women's toilet" made me die omfg

14:16 now that you mention it.... I would love a video showing how viking reenactment fashion has changed, if that's something you can do! I think it'd be interesting to see how people used to interpret the information they had and why we now think differently.

This feels weird but I have to say.... You sir, are incredibly handsome

thank you for pointing out that women were NOT treated equally, I get so annoyed when people claim that women were actually highly respected in viking culture (literally have seen someone say it's because men thought women were magic and so was math and so women controlled all the finances??)

I think covering your hair has a practical aspect as well: it protects your hair from dust - useful in a time when people probably couldn't wash their hair as soon it got dirty, protects you from getting too hot from the sun (depending on color or fiber content).

My grandmother liked to dress simply and modestly in natural fibers and colours, often accentuated with jewelry and silk or woolen shawls (some of which I inheirited). In other words, she dressed more like a Viking woman than the studded leather fantasy gear they are often portrayed as wearing in the movies...and although she was only about 5 feet tall, she had ginger hair when she was young and was as fierce as any Valkyrie. Her great granddaughter resembles her in many respects, save that she will probably be taller.

Years and years ago when I was in the SCA, there were many people who held that Viking apron dresses, open all the down on the sides, were not belted. That would have been both impractical for keeping you warm and dangerous for leaning over an open fire. I'm very glad to hear that you think they wore belts. I once ran across a book in the Iowa State University Library that contained an old photo of three women in traditional Scandinavian folk costume of their region, and the outer layer of all three costumes consisted of an open-sided apron dress that was belted together at the waist. Aha! To my mind, it was obviously an echo of the Viking apron dress.

Me wanting to make something authentic: Alright where do I get myself some northern european breed of wooly animals that existed back then?

Make the Viking dress. I would love to see how you interpret the broaches and jewelry.

Yes this was very useful, thank you! And also yes to making a dress yourself. That would be lovely!

Married or single, covering the hair, at least with a coif or kerchief, WAS DONE. It keeps hair in place, keeps it cleaner. Modesty issues are optional. Any rational woman who cooks with open flame will cover her hair. Otherwise, do you know how fast hair burns? and what it smells like? Full on, uncovered, long hair is seen on a bride at her wedding, or a Queen at her coronation. I do Carolinigian, 780-800. Illumination? NOT a bliaut. It's the standard Frankish dress, a-line, with elbow/mid-arm trumpet or cone sleeves. It's covered with a mantle that covers the head and is pinned at the neck or on one shoulder. A bliaut doesn't appear until very late 11th c, but doesn't hit the form we associate with the term until the middle of the 12th c. (Something of a quick thumbnail on Frankish women's clothes- thin Byzantine, without the bling. A-line, yoke with the stripe down the center, band on the hem and sleeves. Use a brocade with rondels for the trim if you want the classic 'circles' look. And don't forget the mantle! --Liutgard of Luxeuil, OL, An Tir

Thank you for this video! After I went down a rabbit hole starting in Herjolfsness, I spent the last 3 or 4 months researching earlier medieval women's clothing online. Now that I had almost decided on how to sow my aprondress you show this absolutely amazing example. Soooooo - my plans just might have changed... Hayyp new year, Jimmy!

Loved to see you include the bliaut type dress! I used those exact sources for an interpretation of dress for a Ottonian noble woman anno 1000. Spliced some Byzantine flavour into it, since this particular woman (Adela van Hamaland) reportedly was quite in awe with Theophanu and likely met her on more then one occasion... Piecing together an outfit to fit a particular person in time is such fun!

Re: Viking and linen (for outer garment) - not actually Viking but I found out that Lithuanian people traditionally relied on linen as their fiber of choice for clothing (...and everything else, really), despite them living in higher latitude, and this is because Lithuanian sheep's wool fiber was coarse, thus not suitable for clothing (I forgot if they used wool for something else but it didn't seem like it). I don't know if there were certain Viking communities that did similarly to the Lithuanians (that, or perhaps the Vikings were just luckier since their sheep's wool fiber was fine enough to be used for clothing purposes 😜🐑)

Depending on whether your Dublin cap is wool or silk, it could have been dyed with madder or lichen :)

About the gores: If you're going to seam your apron dress on both sides, you probably need gores, because otherwise you couldn't walk, I have a shift that goes over my butt and then straight down and it's too tight around the legs to do larger steps. But if you pleat your dress, you can probably do without gores because you would take a wide enough rectangle to accomodate for walking and then reduce the excess width around the torso with the pleating.

I don’t classify that as a rant, I want a better rant!! I feel robbed of a promised rant. Woe is meee!

Thank you for all the information. I can say that I am super happy with the pleating on my Viking dress. They make it so much more comfy to wear and easier to lend to friends as it is easier to fit on different shaped people.

Purple silk cap? Oh yes, I'm very tempted to make my ancient ancestors go "what are you doing girl? Get that silly Norse fashion tosh off your head, NAO!" :D Also, a resounding HELL YES to seeing Jimmy make an apron dress! Apron dresses for everybody!

This was such a jewel to find. It was like Matt mercer's respect and energy + Karolina Żebrowska 's sass and love for good research. I love this kind of content and I'm guessing I'll love this kind of community. Staying for the ride!! 🌿🎇