About This Site

Hi there and welcome to ElizabethanLady.com! My name is Sarah Lorraine Goodman and this website is dedicated to my passion: Historical costume with a heavy emphasis on research and period construction.

• I would like to emphasise that I am NOT Sarah E. Goodman, who happens to be a well respected costumer active in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is by some sick twist of fate that there happens to be two Sarah Goodmans out there who are costumers, living in Northern California, but please be aware that there IS a difference between us. Where appropriate, I have chosen to refer to myself as "Sarah Lorraine", but since I also write and publish research papers, I must use my legal name for copyright purposes. In this case, I use my full name "Sarah Lorraine Goodman". If you have any confusion regarding this, please email me and I will try to clear things up.
• I have a high regard for authenticity, but this does not make me a garb nazi, snark, stitch counter, etc. Please do not assume that because I value research and documentation, that I condone rude behavior. My personal motto, when it comes to reenactment, is "TEACH BY EXAMPLE" and I prefer to stick by it. If you ever catch me lecturing someone on how "unperiod" something they're wearing is, and they haven't asked me for the information first, please smack me.

This site is dedicated to historical costume, specifically with a focus on fashion and construction of clothing from the 14th and 16th centuries. At the moment, it's entirely 16th century based, however this is due to change in a short while as I start to document and explore my other favorite era, the 14th century. There is a lot of emphasis on costuming within the Society for Creative Anachronism, which I'm loosely involved with at the moment. I really attempt to focus on practical costume techniques for outfits that will see a lot of heavy use and I'm not above resorting to modern tools to achieve a period look. At least in that respect I'm not very anal.

What This Site Is... And Isn't

This website is dedicated to costuming... More specifically, Renaissance and Elizabethan costuming. The Renaissance is a catchall term that applies to the mid 15th century to the end of the 16th century, roughly 150 years during which mankind began waking up from the middle ages and started looking at the mess he'd made and began trying to figure out ways to clean it up. "Elizabethan" takes its name from Queen Elizabeth I of England who reigned from 1558 to 1604 and tends to be regarded as one of the most prosperous, peaceful and interesting times in Western history.

My focus is on costuming for the years of Elizabeth's reign, dealing with Western European styles of clothing. On occasion I've been known to deviate from this path, but for the most part I generally stick to the years 1560-1580, creating costumes that would have been worn in England, France, Germany & Spain, the leading European powers at that time.

• This site is research oriented with a lot of emphasis on pattern drafting and design. A minimum amount of sewing skills would be required to get your money's worth out of this site.

This site is not a commercial or merchandising site. This means that I do not take on commissioned costumes via this site, or over the internet in general. While I am more than willing to help with research (although I will NOT do the actual research beyond what is on this site) I am not going to make you a costume. Not even if you paid me lots and lots of money. I am flattered that people who visit this site like my work enough to ask if I'll sew for them, but I do not accept custom orders via the Internet. I have several reasons for doing this.

• First, I do this for fun. As far as I'm concerned, sewing for other people is NOT fun. I sew for my family and friends, but I know that they won't be a big pain in the butt when I get backlogged or fall behind schedule. ;)
• Second, sewing this particular kind of costume is NOT a lucrative line of business because I simply lack the time it would require to dedicate to a business creating these kinds of costumes. I am a full time anthropology student, which means that A) I'm in the midst of research nearly every waking minute of my life, B) I am too poor to afford the time and money I would need to make a successful business and C) I don't want to ditch everything I've worked hard for the last 5 years of my life to make costumes. Not yet, anyway. Maybe if I won the lottery...
• Thirdly, despite popular belief, I am not anti-Ebay. I do put costumes up for auction via Ebay. I will always post a link on this site to my Ebay auction site, so if you're really dead set on owning a Sarah Lorraine creation, you will have the chance. Bear in mind, though, that the costume will probably be made to fit me, and if you're not a 5 foot tall, 105 lbs. woman, it's probably not going to fit. Sorry, but that's the nature of the beast. If you are interested in purchasing a costume, I know of several wonderful professional costumers who would love to have your business. Please email me if you are looking for a referal.

Site Requirements, etc.

The only requirement that I can think of in viewing this site is to have the following:

• A computer (you probably knew this already)
• Internet access (if you don't have these two things, I can't help you)
• Netscape 4 or higher or
• MS Internet Explorer 3 or higher
• And it definately helps to have an updated version of Shockwave Flash Viewer, which takes 2 seconds to download and it totally free. Give it a try!
• To get optimal performance, I suggest using Netscape as it is a far superior browser than IE, which infects your computer with all kinds of icky Microsoft nastiness and generally makes any Mac absolutely miserable.

Share & Enjoy!

Sarah