Brien and Alex Langsdorf

This week's feature combines three of my favorite things: great period menswear, adorable kids in costume, and Landsknecht! I'm tickled pink! Brien (aka Klaus Schumacher) has been making improvements on this costume for awhile now - I thought it looked fantastic in it's first incarnation, but now it even more amazing than ever. (And don't listen to him when he tries to say that it isn't perfect in the description below the picture! I don't believe it.) Anyway, here's one more photo of his son Alex in his charming little waffenrock. If you would like to contact Brien, you can email him at Brien(dot)Langsdorf(at)dhs(dot)gov, and you can see more pics of the Landsknecht reenactment group that he is a member of here. (photo credit: Mike Amos)

Klaus's outfit: This is my first attempt at a stereotypical landsknecht outfit from 1529. The hat is a leftover from my first outfit and was made by another unit member. The arming cap is made out of thin wool and lined with linen and is copied from another arming cap in my unit, so I'm not sure how authentic it is. The shirt was made by another unit member and is made from cotton and/or linen. I'm not exactly sure what combination of the two but it looks enough like linen that you can't really tell it's not, so I figured it'll do. The side opening doublet is made from thin wool lined and trimmed with linen. The wool wasn't fulled, which I would do next time, so I slashed it on the bias to minimize fraying. The points at the bottom are all hand sewn around rings taken from an old chain mail mantle. The pattern for the doublet is a modified version of Period Patterns #53 (Tudor Men's (View 3)). The sleeves were a quick summer experiment. They are made from two layers of linen using a slightly modified version of Jen's Florentine sleeve pattern (thanks Jen). Again the slashes are on the bias to minimize fraying. The pants are made from brown suede lined with linen. The pattern I first started with was Period Patterns #49 (Men's Italian Ren. (Full length hose)) and had a mock up modified and fitted. In the course of making these pants I lost over 20 pounds and had to refit them -- not an easy thing to do by yourself. The codpiece is made out of wool lined with the same linen as the pants, although I never got around to slashing it. It was only meant to be temporary until I got around to making one out of leather, but that hasn't happened yet. The stockings are cotton "Williamsburg Stockings". The shoes I made (my specialty) and fit well enough to stay on without a strap, which is very period.

I did most of the pattern work and hand sewing but I must give credit to my mother, Bonnie, for doing all of the machine sewing. I still haven't bothered learning how to use a machine and without her help probably still wouldn't be done. The outfit was designed to keep me from overheating in the summer months, and it does a pretty good job of it. All the slashing is based on historical examples.

Now Jen made the comment that the outfit looks absolutely perfect to her. Well, I've done a bit of research since I've started it, and there's a lot that could be better. One of the most obvious to me is that the color choices are not the best. Gray and brown weren't really popular colors for a landsknecht. They would have used brighter colors like red, yellow, blue, green, white, and such. Also many of the outfits had stripes, which were frequently white. Also the sleeves seem to almost always match the doublet in color references of painted woodcuts.

Alex's outfit: The shirt and doublet with bases were both made by Alex's Grandmother, Bonnie. The shirt is linen. The doublet with bases were made from leftovers from my doublet and lined with natural colored linen. His hose were just a pair of opaque tights that I found in the costume box that don't look too bad from a distance. His lower hose are just a pair of my tube socks held up (or not) with leather ties for garters. His shoes were made by me, and hopefully he'll be able to use them next season. I know they say that a shoemaker's children are never shod but I just couldn't let that happen. The whole outfit was thrown together very quickly and still needs a lot of work to be acceptable for a competition event.