Farb

My eldest, Percival, is going to compete in longsword at Valhalla Faire in South Lake Tahoe this weekend, so we are making it a road trip. It's rather a scramble, as we found out on Sunday that it was THIS weekend. So needed to find accommodation, bunny-sitter, gather food, and so on. And Percival needs a new pair of breeks. Didn't think of that a Yuletide. Drat. So I'm rather busy for the next few days. Anyway, the breeks are something like this Polyvore Costumes:

But fuller. He's a swordsman, so cannot be poncing about in Court breeches or schlepping about in slops (think ginormous sailor trousers).

As for me, I haven't worked a Faire in yonks, nor even gone, I'm afraid, so I am doing what the childer always do and putting stuff together from my closet. Oh yes. I go to fancy dress parties from my closet. People say 'WHERE did you GET that?' and I say 'These are my clothes....' erm.... I DO have some anxiety about being a farb - inappropriately dressed in pseudo period costume - because I am a costumer, but it can't be helped at short notice. in truth I would be anxious about it unless I had spent weeks making period appropriate garb. Always was.

So many people have asked, when I use the word, what 'farb' or 'farby' means and where it came from. What it means they get from context - attire or accoutrements which excite snarky remarks from re-enactors - but the origin of the word is somewhat up for grabs. It first appeared in the early days of 'Civil War re-enacting' (War Between The States, or the Late Unpleasantness, in our down home environs) in the 1960s. Some say it is from the German for 'colour' (farbre), others that it derives from 'Far BE it from ME to comment on your Period Inappropriate [fill in blank]'. I think the German origin is probably stretching it, but we shall never really know. Anyway, as you can see, being farby is a very bad thing.

Friends don't let friends be farbs, and all that. (Got the t-shirt.)
Why else would one spend countless hours handsewing linen, wool, silk, in period correct manner, if not to avoid the dreaded F word?
Not ever for love of history and detail, perchance.