Clothes Make the Man - WIP Update No. 1
Ditching the Medieval wardrobe
Lately in the process of worldbuilding my WIP fantasy novel, I’ve been focusing on the five races that populate my world. Specifically, the issues of wardrobe and aesthetic have been on my mind.
Whenever I hear tell of someone’s fantasy novel, or if I'm in the midst of writing one myself, my brain instantly goes to a very specific time period and aesthetic.
Anglo-Saxon dress. Knights in full plate armor. War horses. Big ol’ stone castles. Stained glass. Leather and hide. Intricately woven tapestries. Magic swords.
In four words: ye olde Medieval world.
Nothing wrong with that. Never anything wrong with that. And while certainly not every fantasy novel ever written embraces the Medieval look, that is definitely the stereotype.
Usually I love and gravitate towards that same stereotype when I write in the fantasy genre, but this time around I’ve found I’m balking at the idea of making the world and the people in it just another fantastical version of our own Middle Ages. Deep in my soul, I’m craving something different, something I’ve never seen or read before. The problem is that my knowledge of fashion history is, uh, extremely limited, to say the least. Thankfully I didn't have to sink far into the bowels of the internet to discover this lovely resource.
Fashion History Timeline is the perfect site for authors who want to know the basics of popular fashion from prehistoric times all the way to 2019—names of articles of clothing, example pictures from the time period, basic influences on specific styles, materials used—without having to become a scholar on the subject. The authors excellently provide not only practical information about the clothes, but also insightful quotes about the fashions of the day from the people who actually lived in them. Under the Time Period tab, you can select from a variety of historical eras (many of which are separated by decade), and each article is broken down into womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, and trendsetters.
The amount of paintings and photographs of real articles of clothing makes me all starry-eyed, but I won't lie: the massive amount of resources painstakingly listed in the bibliographies, as well as the clear and concise explanations are just perfect for me and how I work. If you haven't checked it out, I definitely recommend you do, even if only to gape at how beautiful and practical clothing used to be. Man, our ancestors were intelligent.
Sidetracked. Back to the original topic.
As mentioned earlier, my WIP contains five races of people, one of whom (and the one I'm currently working on fleshing out) is the Humans. As the world I’m designing is mostly ocean, I would be absolutely remiss if there weren't any pirate characters roaming its seas. I did briefly consider having the Human culture—the one whose people are most prone to piracy anyway—wear fashions reminiscent of our own Golden Age of Piracy (c. 1650-1730 AD), but for whatever reason I've just never really liked the look of it.
Something about the shape is . . . potato-like? I don’t know. And the ruffles and large plumed hats and obnoxious colors and heavy brocades don’t help, either. It's just too gaudy for my tastes. And as far as my characters go, one of the main ones is a privateer, and given his life and personality he'd rather die than wear the floppy hats, poofy sleeves, and wide boots we often think of in conjunction with legendary pirate captains like Blackbeard and privateers like Sir Francis Drake. It's just far too . . . swashbuckly. Or too Shakespearean. Who knew pirates could ever be described as such.
I spent a good few hours browsing around on Fashion History Timeline, seeing what was there and trying to put my finger on exactly what I liked. At the end of the day, tempted though I was to throw all my Human characters into Western fashion from the 1770s and 1780s, I kept going back the the look I love best—England, 1810-1819. Regency period. Neoclassical art movement. Mr. Darcy.
I see those eyes rolling, men. Hear me out a second.
One, look at these naval men from the Napoleonic Wars and tell me this fashion doesn't just scream ocean adventure.
If you've seen Master and Commander, this is the same time period and fashion that are represented in that film and book series.
Two, while I've not made any effort to look it up, I've never heard of any big fat fantasy book written whose characters live in a world of Regency period clothing, architecture, and art. If such books do exist, somebody please comment with titles because I would love to read them! I definitely don't think I'm trailblazing anything here. It's just something that seems so interesting partially because I've never seen anyone do it before.
Three, narratively having a neoclassical look also lends itself perfectly to the Humans flipping the bird to one of the other four races (which I will talk about in another post). What's a novel without conflict of all kinds, including unnecessary pettiness?
So I’m gonna give this a go. It’s definitely different and probably a turn-off to some avid fantasy readers, but this oddity feels like a breath of fresh air in my lungs, and maybe it will be that for other people as well. I guess we’ll see. Regardless, I’m greatly looking forward to learning more about early 19th century English fashion, art, architecture, and culture as I continue building this fantasy world. At the very least I’ll have tried and learned something new, and that makes the effort absolutely worthwhile.
I’ll be posting about the time periods that have inspired the aesthetics of the other four races in my WIP as I develop them. In the meantime, I’d love to know what you’ve all been working on this week. Is there some interesting or strange worldbuilding you’ve done in your novels and stories, or any other ways you’ve broken stereotypes in your writing?
And, again, if you know of any fantasy novels or stories that have a Regency aesthetic, please, please let me know! I’d love to read them and support fellow writers doing similar things.
Blessings on your writing and worldbuilding this coming week,
KM
P.S. For the record, while Mr. Darcy is of course an excellent character, I much prefer Mr. Henry Tilney (Northanger Abbey) and Mr. Frederick Wentworth (Persuasion) as my Austen men of choice. Same time period, I know, but at least I'm not 100% basic (sorry Darcy fanatics).
Does "Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies" count?