The year is 873 and Frida is deciding what to wear. Her new red dress is finally ready, as are her freshly polished shell-shaped brooches designed to hold it in place at her shoulders. The dress is the latest in Viking fashion.

Of course, we don’t know exactly how the scenario played out. Nevertheless, to a Viking woman, Frida’s dress in vibrant red with matching brooches could have been hugely popular. In fact, red and blue were among the most popular colours in the Viking Age.

But did the Vikings really have fashion on the mind?

“Yes,” says Ulla Mannering from the Centre for Textile Research at the National Museum in Copenhagen. But Viking fashion was different from how we perceive it today, where the wardrobe changes from year to year, she explains. “The Vikings followed trends and tendencies, that we today might call fashion. But Viking fashion changed slowly through time. It does not mean that they threw out all their old clothes, but we do see new colours, decorations, or costume shapes materialise over time, “says Mannering. For instance detailed analysis have shown that contrary to popular ideas, Viking women in Denmark in the 10th century began to wear their “gadgets” (knives, scissors etc.) hanging from belts and not from their tortoise brooches (which would have been highly impractical).

However, it is obvious that following a distinct fashion was the privilege of the elite. Our knowledge of Viking fashion comes entirely from the tombs of rich Vikings and tells us little about how poorer people in society would have dressed, explains Mannering.

“What we call fashion are perhaps rather symbols of high status. Overall, it seems as if ordinary Vikings would have been dressed in something similar, though less luxurious and without the gold, silver, fur, and silk. But the elements would have been roughly the same. Styles of high-status outfits probably influenced styles of garments made further down the social hierarchy,” says Mannering.

The Vikings, who had the means to do so, were not afraid to wear extravagant clothes, made with expensive materials.

Wool, linen, and layers

A typical costume for a woman consisted of a linen undergarment, covered by a long woollen dress or skirt down to the feet. Dresses often had straps and were held in place across the chest with shell-shaped brooches (see gallery). Researchers have also discovered that some dresses had fitted sleeves. Outerwear was usually a cloak, closed at the front of the chest, typically worn with a small hat or a headscarf.

The men’s attire on the other hand typically consisted of a linen tunic, worn underneath another tunic made of wool.

On the bottom half they wore either short or long trousers, or sometimes knee length pantaloons – imagine Disney’s Aladdin. A cape or a jacket fixed in place at the shoulder and a hat completed the look.

To create this basic dress was a major investment in time. In one experiment, which was presented at the conference, two full dresses had been weighed. Each weighed around 6 kilo; the equivalent of 800 -1600 working hours (100 -200 days) of spinning and weaving, told Eva Andersson. Which explains why it was the jewelry, the bands and the little details, which signaled the will of the wearer to be fashionable.

Vikings also loved colours.

“The Vikings wore colourful clothing with patterns and stitched bands. Red and blue were especially popular throughout the Viking Age, “says Mannering.

In February this year, people gathered for a seminar on Viking clothes at the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen (to be published).

The last item on the day’s agenda was a Viking catwalk show with a series of dresses made at the Ribe Viking Centre

“From time to time archaeologists find pieces of old textiles and leather patches from the Viking era. It can give us an idea of the types of fabrics and techniques once used. It doesn’t tell us much about what Viking clothes actually looked like, but it’s fun to see people who can craft, trying to reproduce Viking clothes,” says Mannering.

“At present, these outfits are our best bet. We’re never going to be able to reconstruct the Viking clothes to a level that an actual Viking would recognize, but we should not be afraid to be imaginative and give it a go,” she says. “We are constantly learning more about Viking clothes and what they would have looked like.”