The Materials
No matter what character you choose to develop in the group or the social status you choose to portray, there is only one cardinal rule...NO HORNS! (on your helmet). Your garb, like your character, will evolve over time and we are not too terribly picky on costuming, (I don't think anyone has been banished yet for improper attire but you will be severely ridiculed for the helmet horns!). We could easily spend days and countless pages on the subject of clothing and coresponding qualities of the period. Today we will keep it on the basic side.
Brightly colored clothes were worn by whoever could afford them. The vast majority of people made their own clothes and were limited to the local plantlife for coloring, though even these were varied and versitile.
Lets suffice it to say for the Vikings, wool was most common in various weights and qualities. Some Sheep kept in Viking times lost their wool through moulting. Regardless of whether the wool had to be shorn or gathered, the process of preparing the wool would differ slightly depending on the yarn required to make the material desired. Linen was also used, mostly as a sign of wealth. Linen can be spun to a very fine thread and gives thin cloth, so it was often used for underwear. Silk was a prized material throughout Europe during the viking age. Only the very wealthy could afford silk, which was too delicate in any case for everyday use in the robust daily lives of even the richest Vikings. It was most often used for decrative braiding and embroidery. Even though cotton was worn in the comtemporary Byzantine Empire and had reached southern spain with the Moors, there is no evidence of it's use in Scandinavian clothing.
The bottom line to any outfit of course, should be comfort with an attempt made toward an illusion of authenticity.
The Fashion
The basic garment for both men and women was the tunic, a simple shirt-shape cut straight and with added sleeves. the Women's tunic was ankle length, sometimes long or half-sleeved, sometimes even sleeveless. It was typically worn with a long overgarment made from rectangular lengths of material front and back joined by straps and brooches at the shoulders.
The Man's Tunic reached the knee and was worn over trousers. Trousers seem to have been cut in various shapes: full-length, straight and loose; tighter fitting, in the manner of later medieval hose; knee length with seperate, cross gartered leggings below; and for the relatively wealthy in the baggy Rus style. These garments, made from woolen cloth and normally loose enough for easy movement, were often the only clothing a Viking owned apart from a simple woolen cloak, and a belt to which small possessions might be slung.
The typical Viking shoe was an ankle-high "turn-shoe" fastened with laces at the side. Often, the leg was wrapped from foot to below the knee with a narrow length of wool cloth commonly in a harringbone pattern. Higher boots were also worn, some with ankle straps fastened by toggles.
There are of course many other garments, including the undergarments, that were worn depending on one's wealth and geographical location, even season of the year. The well dressed warrior for instance would have had a whole different set of clothing that was specifically designed by function. On the whole, Viking clothing was more sophisticated than might be expected from looking at the simple tools with which it was made.
"Drink wisely, lest a man you offend with loose tongue"
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