This Summer my wife and I are bringing three of the kids (17, 12 - boys, and 10 - girl) to Summer Solstice.
My wife and I last did LRP 15 years ago, have dragged what’s left from those days out of the loft and… well.
Having only really decided and committed last week, we are now in a massive panic about costume, footwear and everything else.
If anyone has any good ideas for fairly cheap shortcuts for the kids, us, esp. IC footwear etc Please throw them up here!
Also looking for at least four LRP safe daggers that are system compatible and a couple of one handed weapons if anyone has spares they dont mind selling on?
Do you mean Summer Solstice (the July event) or Spring Equinox (The late May bank holiday event we’re about to have) because if you really mean Summer Solstice you have a few more options.
Quick and Dirty fixes for kids costume:
IC footwear - look for girls fashion boots, you can almost always get a tan suede one, probably with tasselled fringes. Might not work so well for your older boy if he has large feet. Also brown riding boots from large sporting stores.
Girls leggings are a great stand in for hose, and can be easily found in almost any colour. Add a white poet shirt (try a plain girls peasant shirt, don’t tell the boys you’re shopping in the girls aisle), tabard in house colours and a belt and you have a perfect dawnish costume (works for adults too!)
In that case hold off a little bit, You’ll get more choice as the proper summer fashions come in, leggings and peasant tops are very much summer fashion
If you sew then there are loads of suitable simplicity patterns for children and adults
“Half-chaps” also help… basically leather boot-toppers for riding that come up to the knee and cover most evidence of modern boots (especially if they match the colour ). Makes for a good short-term solution to finding boots… I’ve found that getting LARP-usable boots with good ankle support is either hit-and-miss or expensive.
Otherwise, yeah the big things for a Dawnish household would be a (belted) tabard in the right colours. Anything more is armour, decoration or decorative armour.
What are your household colours? I have some tabards I’m going to be getting rid of before I move and if they’re in the right colours I’d be happy to bring them for you to use/have.
There are a couple of people (Jude Reid and Rosemary Warner both spring to mind) who have embroidery machines and tend to charge very competitive rates. Both can be reached via the Facebook group ‘Costume Froth’. Bold tabards on the whole family with matching heraldic symbols front and back would be a great way to make you all look good together. A unified look can really make simple costumes look instantly better.
If you are making tabards, I would suggest lining them if you can- always makes them look a lot more like quality clothing than fancy dress, in my opinion.
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). Makes for a good short-term solution to finding boots… I’ve found that getting LARP-usable boots with good ankle support is either hit-and-miss or expensive.