There’s absolutely obsessive autists in the community that research, document, analyze, and reconstruct down to the tiniest detail. All hail our Queen Janet Arnold! Some of them are employed as fashion historians but many more are just regular people who love to learn and share their knowledge in YouTube videos or blog posts. Most are women and are more interested in sharing their creations versus competing. Historical accuracy is highly regarded and praised, though we are quick to remind each other that perfect historical accuracy is impossible in this day and age. At the same time, it’s not looked down on for someone to purchase an outfit, even from Amazon. It’s very typical for a person to purchase their outfit from a maker. Sewing your own historical outfits requires an immense amount of time, money, resources, knowledge, and skill and is not feasible for most people.
An outfit is more going to be judged on how the maker (or purchaser) presents it. Many in the HCC enjoy Bridgerton, even though the costumes are far from historically accurate, because the show never claimed to be going for historically accuracy and the creators very intentionally put their own spin on it in creating their own Regency inspired world. But if a show or movie makes big claims about how accurate their costuming is going to be and doesn’t deliver, absolutely know that the HCC will pick apart every little inaccurate detail with absolute distain. Stop giving women in historical movies or tv shows current trending hairstyles and makeup!!
Creators like Bernadette Banners, Lady Rebecca,
Sewstine, Abby Cox, Nicole Rudolph, Morgan Donner, and Zach Pinsent are all well regarded historical costumers and YouTubers. They’re always very open about what degree of historical accuracy they’re aiming for when making something. Sometimes it’s fun to get crazy and attempt to make a museum quality recreation. Other times just call for something a little nicer than you’d get in a cheap Halloween costume. Rachel Maksey is a YouTube creator who often goes with whimsy over historical accuracy (and loves fake historical like Lord of the Rings) but is still highly regarded because she doesn’t claim her crafts are highly accurate and historically inclined people still greatly enjoy historical-esque or historically adjacent things. We all take every opportunity to go to a RenFest! The HCC is very open to a person choosing their preferred level of historical accuracy and intensity of a project - the important thing is that it results in a garment that the person loves, whether they bought it or made it. But given the opportunity, OH BOY will we have an amazing time getting incredibly intense about getting every detail right and going absolutely overboard!