Monday 11 May 2009

Museum Fuglicas

I've never been impressed by the garb offerings at Museum Replicas, but lately they've really taken a plunge into the crapper.  




"The splendor and beauty of ancient Greece has never been more apparent than in this stunning dress." Clearly they've never seen Nike of Samothrace... much less looked at the details of her clothing.



This is their take on Anne Boleyn.  A cursory study of portraits would tell them that the Tudors did NOT wear sleeves like this, the waistline of the bodice is Baroque, not Renaissance, and the split in the overskirt is way too wide.  Since I've ranted about smaller details of Tudor tailoring so many times before, I won't do it again.  I'll just say that the embroidery is not historical AT ALL and looks like what you see on modern dresses from India.




They call this period.  I have no idea what period, and I don't think they do either.




Oh god.  Princess seams.  Modern lace.  Silver wrist ruffles.  Oh, and sleeve 'slashes' made of flimsy ribbon trim. 



Behold the Cantebury Gown.  I have no clue where Cantebury is, but judging by those sleeves, it must be somewhere in Italy.

No surprise, as they confuse real, historical Italian gowns with the English as well.  They say their Lady Jane dress "could easily be seen traversing the royal court of King Henry VIII." But in reality, it's a replica of the burial gown of a duchess of Florence (albeit a bad one; Sofi's Stitches did a better job).

I guess I shouldn't boggle.  Museum Replicas used to sell functional, tempered steel weapons and garb that was, at worst, too simple in design and stingy with yardage.  But then they decided to do things on the cheap and sell crappy swords.  Not long after, their clothes slumped from acceptable field garb to barely being larpworthy.  I'm surprised they're still in business at all, now that their weapon selection is so scanty.

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