Marisca Hoogschagen

I may not know very much about 9th and 10th century Danish clothing, but I do know a beautiful dress when I see one, so I instantly fell in love with this charming Viking attire! I am really impressed with how authentic and real this gown looks, and you can see this even better in another picture of Marisca sitting at camp while nalebinding. Marisca sent a fabulous description of the gown that you can read below, and you can also check out her webpage which gives a really nice overview of the period that her persona, Gerbirga van Wictulfingafurt, is from. And if you'd like to see even more great pictures of this type of garb, be sure to stop by the De Wierde Wironii, which is a Viking re-enactment group that Marisca is a member of.

This dress is called "hangarokk" (we tend to call it "wrap around pini" though...). It is a very practical type of dress, although it can be tricky to get the shoulderstraps on without help.

Basically the dress is not much more than 3 rectangles plus 2 triangles and 2 shoulder straps. For me (european size 38) the rectangles are 47 cm wide and 110 cm long, the triangles (gores) are inserted at the widest point of my hips and are thus 75 cm high and 85 cm wide at the bottom (height measured from tip to center of bottom, NOT along the actual sides of the triangle). You sew the rectangles and triangles together in such a way that you get an overlapping type of dress. The shoulderstraps are sewn onto the back, and the two overlapping front panels both get loops (made of e.g. lucetting cord), which are connected to the shoulderstraps using a big brooch. So all in all you'll have three loops connected to the brooch: 2 from the dress itself, and 1 from the shoulder strap. This dress is made of two-coloured wool. Although it sounds warm, it's actually not too bad on a sunny day. In extreme heat I tend to pull the two front "flaps" under my belt which is decorative as well as cool. :-)

In between the brooches, I have several strings of beads. The beads are made of all kinds of materials (bone, silver, wood) but most of them are glass.

I wear two linen underdresses: one decorated red one, and a plain white one. This is the one that is washed most often and which could be regarded as underwear. Talking of underwear, I'm also wearing a speculative type of "knickers": I've sewn a tube of linen with three openings in it: two where my legs come out and one where I step in. It is closed by a drawstring and is pretty comfortable and warm (it reaches down to my knees!).

I also wear nalebinded socks (you can see me nalebinding my mittens in one of the pictures!) and leather shoes. I'm not too happy with the shoes but I'll make better ones some day.

I've sewn all garments by hand, except the wrap which was a present from a friend.