Roman Clothing and Armament Guides

We often get requests or have various discussions on making costumes or authentic Roman clothing. While searching around for "Roman things to do" in the summer of 2007 (for our forum meetings), my memory was refreshed as to the wonderful guides that are already provided by some of the legionary re-enactment groups.

From Legio XXIV Media

Lorica (Armor)

Corbridge A Segmentata

Corbridge B

Newstead

Civilian Clothing

From Legio XX:

Handbook for Legionaries

Civilian Clothing Some is the exact same as the above page but it offers additional information such as cold-weather clothing, things to avoid and other links. (And I'm not quite sure who is the original source so I'd figure I'd provide links to both legions.)

My dreams of Toga-making have been stymied by finding the right material. Does anyone know where to find suitable cloth wide enough?

CiceroD if you were in the UK you probably could find suitable cloth at several markets or specialist cloth shops although you may have to do a lot of mileage to see what they hold. There are also several re-enactor's fairs run each year some of which in addition to the usual pre-made items (ususally but not always medieval) such as clothing, armour and other equipment have cloth suppliers willing to sell you something suitable by the yard or metre.

In fact one of the biggest UK events is the Spring Market (although I believe there is also an autumn one) which is coincidentally going to happen this weekend (18-20 March 2011) - full details of this and contact details for the traders including several cloth merchants can be found here

From your membership page you seem to be based in America and I believe there are similar facilities and events there (and elsewhere) so even if they may be a bit old it may be worth your while checking out the suppliers listed at the American 'legion' sites which are listed above:

Leggio XX has several suppliers listed under fabric here.

The Legio XXIV site doesn't seem as well laid out but also lists one or two fabric suppliers here.

Thank You Melvadius! I shall have to investigate further.

Very interesting. I like your second link where you describe body armors.

Nice.

An excellent list. I hope Legio XX update their things to avoid list, as a huge number of bad Roman equipment has flooded the market since the page was erected, some of which is mentioned on a few of their other pages, but hasn't been included on the avoid list. The horrible Roman Trooper helmets are still as popular as ever, as a quick glance of ebay could show you.