Fighter clothing

Fighter clothing is modern generic term for clothing specifically designed with combat in mind.

Fighter Clothing in the SCA

In the SCA, combatants and their required armour is divided into 2 major categories - heavy and light. Light combat includes Rapier and Archery.

Heavy armour includes the gambeson. This item is a padded coat that is designed to be worn under armour to protect the body from the effects of blows. A arming cap is a padded coif worn under the helmet.

In the SCA, there are minimum requirements for rapier armour including the application of a punch test with a broken blade.

Fighter Clothing in Reenactment

Reenactors also wear gambesons/aketons under their mail and arming doublets under plate harness. Where appropriate they wear padded coifs under helmets, unless the helmet has a proper suspension harness.

The quality of padded armour varies from those who construct theirs from the appropriate materials (e.g. multiple layers of used linen) to cotton wadding inside calico. Most are somewhere in between.

Historical fencers also use leather doublets similar to extent finds.

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See also:

• Fighter clothing for various time periods.