The SCA, because of its rather long history, has members at all sorts of levels of interest.  You have a wide spectrum of individuals involved.  Some are content with attending events in commercially made garb from a renaissance fair vendors, and that’s perfectly OK.  Others go as far as hand weaving fabric and then using that fabric to hand sew garb and embroider it.  They’re mad as march hares, and they’ll most likely agree to that assessment with a bit of a blush.  That level of historical geekery is rather consuming.  Then there’s a whole lot of people who are somewhere in between.

How far each individual wants to step into great ocean of historical accuracy is up to them.  AND THAT’S PERFECTLY OK.  If you want to get involved in the SCA, never let anyone make you feel you aren’t doing “enough” about your appearance or your projects.  Those of us who have taken the next step should always encourage people to want to take the plunge, but never be snarky dicks about it, which would likely discourage people from even trying.  I have a few friends who refuse to join the SCA because of experiences with snarky people, and it’s a shame.

For example, I was a “rennie” (renaissance faire participant/actor) for several years, then I sought out my local SCA group to see if I would be interested.  My clothing, while mostly hand made, was pretty much renaissance faire garb.  And that was perfectly OK.  My local group was quite low key and friendly, which suited me just fine.

Over the past 8+ years in the SCA, I’ve made greenland gowns and T-tunics and various other styles of dress.  I never settled on one style or period of history, preferring to try my hand at various styles for the sheer experience of recreating different clothing, learning a bit about each culture and style of dress in the process.  I learned how to do research, at least on the web, of these various styles in order to understand the nuances that could be applied, and what would/wouldn’t have been standard.  And sometimes I still broke the rules, but that’s perfectly OK.  Nobody has ever snarked my garb.  I’m making the effort, and that’s what counts.

Now I’m ready to take the next step.  I have over the past couple of years gathered a cultural background, heraldry and registered name.  Now I get to apply that to a “persona”, the fictional person I am trying to recreate the details of within history.  Meadbh bean mhic Bhradaigh is the wife of a ship’s captain/part owner of a shipping company.  She hails from outside of Dublin but also has a house in London where her husband has his business.  The year is 1560.  Why 1560?  I went over the fashions with my husband and his interests as a fencer, and we came up with Tudor/early Elizabethan.  1560 is paned slops and doublets, but before the time of bird-who-swallowed-a-plate ruffs, which I refuse to wear and more importantly refuse to iron.

Mary Stuart & James Darnley. 1560’s fashion.

So during the next year I will be gathering historical portraiture of the time period for reference, understanding the structure of the garments from extant pieces, reading up on other people’s experience where they have created this type of garb, and creating some test pieces that hopefully will be useable garb.  In addition I’ll be researching and considering the political and social climate of the era/location, to understand what my life as Meadhbh would have been like.  I’m not going so far as to hand-stitch together my garments, because I’m not there yet.  Maybe someday, but not now.

The question you may ask is “why?”.  Well, because at heart I am a geek, and I’m tossing some of my geek energy into being a history geek.  I enjoy what I do, and get excited with the possibilities.  There’s tons of areas of interest in the SCA beyond making garb, and which one(s) you choose to geek out about is a reflection of you.  And you can delve into many areas before picking what interests you most, which is one of the brilliant things about the SCA.

Learn every day, and be geeky enough to maybe take the next step into history.