“See you online!” is one of the first things I hear when I step out of the car in Coalville, Leicestershire on a Saturday afternoon in November. The speaker is bidding farewell to their friend, both pairs of arms too occupied with holding speciality swords, winter cloaks and leather armour pieces to properly wave goodbye. A bumper sticker reads “Straight Out Of Fury Road” on the side of a beaten-up Vauxhall Corsa; meanwhile, two people wearing fluffy, cat-eared helmets speed off on a motorcycle.
I’m here for LarpCon’s annual November kit fair. As I step inside the venue I’m immediately transported to a fantasy realm where hordes of rogue elves, halfling herbalists and imperial orcs surround me. They’re browsing the wares of merchant stalls in search of crushed velvet cloaks, medieval armour and two-handed claymores. To my left, a longsword is unsheathed by a level six Paladin. To my right, an unsuspecting group recounts spellcasting and ritual instructions. All the while, the shiny linoleum floors, bright overhead lights and the strong scent of chlorine remind me that no, I am not in some sort of George R. R. Martin or Tolkien-esque fictional world: I am in the sports hall of an Everyone Active leisure centre on the edge of an industrial estate in Leicestershire.
The UK’s largest convention dedicated to LARP (Live Action Role Play), LarpCon has taken place here every spring for the last eight years. LARPing is a real-world, character-led type of role-playing game that involves improvisational acting, cosplay, re-enactment and storytelling – think Dungeons & Dragons, but in 3D. This annual November event is a smaller operation where merchants sell off their end-of-season gear before “The Long Dark” (that’s LARP-speak for winter). Here LARPers, historical re-enactors and cosplayers from all over the UK are looking to kit themselves out with costumes and props to enhance their in-game characters and have a catch-up with their community in-person.
When LarpCon began, it was one of the only IRL spaces to shop for LARP clothing and props. You couldn’t (and still can’t, really) just rock up to a shopping centre expecting to find period or genre-appropriate tunics, cloaks, armour and weapons. In the DIY spirit of the character and world-building nature of the game, many people ultimately end up making and selling their own gear.
When we think about LARP fashion, medieval-coded fantasy pieces typically come to mind: chainmail coifs, full metal or leather armour suits, corsets. Of course, these styles didn’t spring out of nowhere, but were instead inspired by the very real knights, soldiers and nobles who wore these pieces — not so much as fashion statements but instead as practical pieces of clothing for battling it out to the death or marrying noblemen. In fashion history, these styles have provided a rich well from which to draw inspiration for many designers. Alexander McQueen, for instance, made stunning chainmail pieces for his AW98 Joan of Arc-inspired collection, and John Galliano crafted a medieval-slash-steampunk collection for AW06 couture at Dior.
These styles never completely left, with bardcore slowly trickling back into fashion over the past few years. But now, it feels like the sartorial world is reaching peak geek — for example, Dilara Findikoglu’s chainmail-style headpiece from her AW24 collection, Supreme’s latest collaboration with sci-fi illustrator Frank Frazetta, Lueder’s dragon-printed graphic tee and armour-like panels, as well as Londoner Yaku Stapleton’s sci-fi inspired, character-led SS25 collection (complete with swords). For Cruise 2025, Dior showed their Mary, Queen of Scots-inspired collection in the gardens of a fifteenth-century castle, replete with chainmail knit dresses, leather armbands and metallic studded corsets that looked like they came straight out of Game of Thrones.
These styles — and their parallels to the equally popular and pervasive nerd culture — are so omnipresent that, occasionally, it’s difficult to differentiate between fashion fans and costume hobbyists — recently, while enjoying a video from Chopova Lowena’s Victorian costume-inspired SS25 show, my partner (very earnestly) thought I was watching a video from ComicCon. Corsets, tulle petticoats and Lolita-style headpieces are not just limited to cosplayers and J-fashion enthusiasts — they’re for the fashion runway, too.
But, as I learnt in Coalville, LARPers take their looks as seriously as the most ardent high-fashion followers. Why wouldn’t you, when it’s such an essential part of character creation within the world of LARP? I meet Steph Pardoe and Kate Chaplin at the edge of one LarpCon’s armour stalls, and am taken back by the pair’s meticulous level of commitment: from the custom-made leather horns on Kate’s head, to the brown leather tasselled pouch fastened along Steph’s waist. “[For costumes] you are entirely creating your own outfit from the ground up,” Kate explains. “When you’ve got all the accessories, you’re creating a persona.” Steph tells me of an in-game fashion and culture magazine called The Looking Glass that reports on players’ costumes and trends, publishes costume tips, conducts celebrity-style interviews with high-profile players, and includes, perhaps most importantly, gossip.
“If we can get to the place where we can walk around the street wearing cloaks, I’ll be happy”
Simon, aka staven the hunter
Naturally, the magazine piques my interest as it seems like the perfect Venn Diagram of reasons I am here: fashion, geeky things and goss. Its editors Becka Champion, Mel Trender and Miranda Brennan aren’t here today, but they tell me all about their magazine, which is kinda like the Vogue of the LARPing world, over email. “In the real world, fashion and material culture are an inevitable expression of the social and political realities of the era you live in,” they explain. “In the game world, this is also true — and people think about what they want to articulate about their character and their story with dress.” The magazine, they say, encourages players to create more complex in-game costumes, and helps to “hype” the community up.
As I continue to weave my way through the labyrinth of stalls at the kit fair, I’m drawn to a stall called Velvet Glove Costumes where I find table upon table of masterfully-cut leather armour and arm bracelets, velvet capes and cloaks, and aluminium chainmail that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Dilara Findikoglu show. The stall’s owner George tells me she started the company back in 2002 after over a decade of already making her own LARP gear, partially born out of a lack of access to LARP clothes that fit her. “Being tiny, nobody made kit in my size and most of it was expensive and not great, so I taught myself how to make some things and it’s just grown ever since,” she explains.
In the two decades that George has been making her own gear, there have been some pretty major advances in the LARP clothing scene. For one, crafting materials are more readily available — and significantly cheaper. Wholesale apparel is also much easier to come by these days, meaning it’s easier for merchants to buy and sell on to LARPers, cosplayers, re-enactors — or to anyone who wants to look the part. Perhaps that’s why so many of the items at George’s stall and others bear a striking resemblance to a lot of fashion collections seen on catwalks recently and items worn by fashion girlies sporting chainmail headpieces, corsets and puff-sleeved dresses on the #medievalcore or #weirdeval side of TikTok.
A few more stalls, impulse purchases and a shot of actual mead later I spot Eddie, his blue hair and elf ears drawing me in immediately. Today, Eddie’s selling trousers, maritime-inspired tat and patches that say things like “EARLY TO BED, EARLY TO RISE, FISH ALL DAY, MAKE UP LIES” at his stall, Eddie Nereid Seamstro. Like most merchants at LarpCon, Eddie started out making costumes for himself and his friends before he began trading this year. The garments he makes and sells are billowing, bloomer-esque patchwork ‘smuggler trousers’ that, at a glance, you could mistake for those on Collina Strada’s fairycore SS25 runway. Since he started LARPing eight years ago, he’s noticed that people now take their costumes way more seriously, something that’s very apparent (and impressive) in his outfit today. “I feel like people put a lot more effort into their costumes now – people really wanna go hard,” he says. “People wanna be a bit more authentic with it, and people wanna do a lot more historically accurate stuff, as well as the fantasy stuff.”
But LARP gear isn’t cheap. In fact, it can occasionally cost a similar amount to designer clothes. Already I’ve spent £40 on things I don’t need — a sword-shaped hair stick, a handmade leather keychain adorned with a silver cross, some mulled spice honey, a plush gnome for my mother — and I don’t even LARP. Many of the cloaks and capes I find carry a price tag of around anywhere from £30 to £70, weapons up to £50 and one full armour look I spotted had a price tag of £1372.50. Full kits and costumes can cost LARPers anywhere from a couple of hundred pounds to over a grand — possibly even more if you want to go whole hog. David, a merchant who sells bespoke and RTW polyurethane armour through his company Wrymwick Creations, admits it can get “wickedly expensive.” But, as he says, “it’s a hobby. People are always extremely keen to spend well on their hobbies and their interests.” The same can be said for fashion.
Looking around the kit fair, I’m stunned by everyone’s devotion to their hobby, as well as how kind and welcoming everyone is. At this point I’m even considering joining, much to the joy of some LARPers I meet who chant “one of us, one of us” at me. I wonder how everyone feels about their culture — albeit one embedded in costume and role play — becoming adopted by the fashion world. To my surprise: the feeling is mostly positive. Eddie is happy that LARP’s recent influence on fashion and pop culture, such as Chappell Roan’s triptych of LARP-ish looks at the VMAs earlier this year, might mean the community will grow. “I think it’s good because there’s more people who are interested in LARPing in general,” he says. “It’s a new aesthetic to draw inspiration from.”
The sentiment is echoed by Simon, a punter who has driven up from Kent with his girlfriend for the event. He LARPs as a hunter named Stavan, and today he holds his newly bought broadsword and rolls of earth-toned fabric for his own DIY outfit-making proudly. Though I think he’s dressed somewhat normally in a waistcoat and brown trousers, he tells me that he often gets weird looks walking around Kent in his LARP gear and he would rather the general public be as accepting as his fellow LARPers. “If we can get to the place where we can walk around the street wearing cloaks, I’ll be happy.”
Credits
Text: Dani Ran
Photography: Adrian Vitelleschi Cook
