There are lots of places online to purchase clothing and accessories for Buckskinning or a Mountain Man Rendezvous or Reenactment. You can even buy things at the “Rondy” to add to your experience.
A person can spend a LOT OF MONEY on expensive clothing, bags, buckskins, and all kinds of accessories and accouterments. Those things will fit the bill, but we suggest starting off simple and building up your wardrobe and accessories as you go.
The first thing to sort out, before you buy too many spendy things is WHO ARE YOU? What is your persona? Who are you portraying? It takes some historical research and pondering to decide just who you will be.
Instead of doing a ton of really expensive shopping for items that may not end up fitting with your persona we suggest starting simple.
Wyoming Classics & Bridge Over Time make some really nice calico, muslin and osnaburg drop-sleeve and frontier shirts that will fill the bill. For the ladies we make simple calico dresses in a variety of prints and the ever-popular apron.
Fall-front or drop front pants are a good stand bye. If you budget is really tight we suggest a trip to your local thrift shop. Find a pair of cotton pants that DO NOT HAVE FELLED SEAMS…no top stitched seams. Choose ones with a plain hem or ones that you can cut off at the bottom. Choose a tan or a brown or a grey pair. Later you can replace them with buckskin pants, or drop-fall pants in linen, wool, cotton twill or jeanscloth.
Wyoming Classics Mountain Man Belts are reasonably priced and come with primitive forged buckles and when you order by waist size we make them long enough to also wear over shirts or a capote.
Wyoming Classics moccasins are made to fit your feet using a foot tracing and quite reasonably priced, so we strongly suggest that is a good investment even at the get go.
As you get more into the historical reenacting you will see other people’s characters lived out at rendezvous and also learn a lot as you attend and gain a better feel for how you fit into the scheme of things.
It’s easy to get drowned in the sea of people and their expansive wardrobes and accessories but if you think about it, many of them have been buckskinning for years and adding things along the way.
At Wyoming Classics & Bridge Over Time our goal is to help you build your mountain man era collections at your own speed. We make very limited production items so you will not see yourself coming and going ever… Sure, there are the old standby muslin, bleached muslin and osnaburg shirts…
But there are a vast array of “calico” fabrics available for shirts or dresses. Our site you can select something ready-made knowing that we are continually rotating in new cloth and make a very limited amount of garments with each selection.
If you want to save a few bucks we sell patterns and material and even buttons so you can do that. In addition, Elaine is happy to answer sewing questions on the phone or on line if you need a quick bit of direction along the way.
So, jump in and get your feet wet. Go to a local rendezvous perhaps as a visitor first. Watch some events…take some notes…do some pondering.
Then peruse our website and even call for some ideas from this end. Once you are ready to get started we will be with you as much or as little as you want so that you can “step back in time” with a sense of fitting in and ready to start a wonderful and fun adventure.