Spare the Belt and Spoil the Rennie...

The Renaissance Faire is a peculiar event that sprouted from a high school history project in Southern California during the early 1960’s. It has grown into a sub-culture that spans across the United States, Canada and Europe. Some events are solid historically based events, others are hysterical spectacles of flesh and fantasy, clinging to a thread of Renaissance history… 

Oh...The Horror...

I'm not too picky when it comes to Renaissance Faire...it's a historically themed event...you are going to have folks who don righteously researched and constructed clothing that really presents an accurate historical depiction, and you are going to have folks walking around with pointy fairy ears and wings.

It's all good...

I do have a "pet peeve" though, and it's the dubious "ring belt".  I hate it.  There is absolutely no documentation to support its existence, short of showing up in the 1960s with the Society For Creative Anachronism, or SCA.  

It is an atrocity, and for some reason, folks will pay a bunch of money to the "leatherworker" at faire for something that did not exist...and if by some slim chance it did, it certainly wouldn't be riveted with modern metal rivets! If you find even the slimmest documentation, I would love to see it.  Until such time, spend your money wisely.  There are a multitude of makers who provide correct Medieval and Renaissance period belts for all classes, at really comparable prices.  Why do I say Medieval, well, looking at visual documentation, the poor and lower classes were still wearing clothing and using items that are virtually indistinguishable from that which was being used a couple of centuries earlier.  Hose, turn shoes, belt purses, headwear, shirts, tunics...on the poor, especially out in the country, these Medieval looking items were still being used in the mid to late 16th-century.  But not "ring belts".  Belts have real buckles...they have a prong that slips into a hole (that could be taken a lot of ways, but you know what I mean)...even lower classes would have a real buckle on their belt. 

Make Your Own Medieval: https://www.makeyourownmedieval.com/collections/belts-and-bags/products/ladies-renaissance-15th-century-belt

Lorifactor - Historical Replicas: https://www.lorifactor.com/k60,products-16th-18th-cent-civil-belts.html 

And do not try to tell me "it's a holdover from the Viking Age"...nobody is wearing anything Viking in the 16th century...except the Viking guild...and don't tell them I wrote this...