Quote Originally Posted by Jock Scot View Post
The problem is that it gives the unknowing the opportunity of gaining a false impression.

What about the Braveheart syndrome? What about the Highlander syndrome? What about the many romantic books and films made about Scotland in the past? What about the misguided posts on this website? They ALL lead the unknowing astray.
I fully agree, and I spend a large amount of time online fighting this very thing.

I also spend time fighting another false impression, which is that re-enactors confuse the past with the present, or that they believe that when they put on historical clothing that they're living in the past, or even that they believe that they're actually becoming a personage from history.

This is all nonsense. Re-enactors more than anyone are acutely aware of time, of all the elements that existed in a historical period which serve to make it so distinct from today. The serious ones are serious historians. They do meticulous research into their chosen period of interest and do their best to re-create the look of that specific time and place. They have a trained eye which can spot the smallest anachronism. They're the last people to wear goofy mashups of bits from various time-periods and places. They're the last people to have romantic notions of the past.

So yes for that Renaissance banquet I grabbed some random "close enough" things out of my closet and did the gig. It has a tinge of Brigadoonery.

But if I were do pipe for such things regularly I would do my research, almost entirely based on the two paintings I posted above (the best evidence that exists) and come up with a historically correct costume, a costume which would be the diametric opposite of Brigadoon, of Braveheart, of Outlander.