At some point during an exploration of paganism, the question comes up: what to wear to a ritual? Often, pagan shops and pagans are fond of ritual garb, which can range from black coven robes to historical dress to Ren Fest Garb.
Short answer: depends.
Daily Ritual: Go as You Are
For a daily ritual or workings, meditation, praying, or simple routine actions, special dress is not required. Historic paganism was simply a part of daily life. There is no reason to dress up for regular parts of life, unless the dressing up itself is an act of devotion or part of the ritual.
The weekend is a modern invention. Holidays where the whole village came out and celebrated were a few times a year, not once a week. Those people definitely dressed up for, along with special occasions like marriages and funerals. Nowadays, even tight knit pagan groups that do a lot of work together probably meet more along the lines of once or twice a month rather than once a week.
In the case of magick or spellworking, what you wear can be a part of the energy raising. If there is an outfit that makes you feel powerful or witchy, wear it. But if you don’t have much emotional attachment to clothes, I doubt it will make a difference. I admit I am not very skilled in the magick department, but I can see small details like what you are wearing being a boost only if it matters to you. Having the best magickal outfit won’t help if everything else is there.
For going to a group ritual, it really depends on the group. If being invited to a group for the first time, its perfectly fine to inquire as to what one is expected to wear. One druid group I went to just said where whatever makes you feel beautiful. Public rituals shouldn’t have a dress code, but it would be a good idea to wear comfortable and weather appropriate clothing.
If you’re just exploring a pagan path and not sure where you belong, don’t sweat an outfit yet. Wear something practical and comfortable. (Pro tip: all white long dresses are not good for outdoor rituals.) While Ren Fest garb is popular, it is not historically accurate or pagan. Anytime a corset or bodice is worn as outerwear is a modern style. Fantasy wear like what you find in a King Arthur movie is more fiction than anything.
Constructing Your Own Outfit
For a Reconstructionist, putting together a historically accurate outfit requires research. The local library is a good start, and see if there are any museums devoted to textile history. There are plenty of excellent reenactment and LARP groups for those daring to put in the work. Before department stores and catalogues were available, there were a lot more regional clothing differences. That is before factoring in things like social class, work, and gender. Don’t forget to look at social taboos—what someone would not have been allowed to wear.
As someone who weaves as a hobby, when making an outfit there is only so far you will be able to go to be historically accurate. There is a reason textile production was the first thing to be industrialized in the industrial revolution. Making clothes purely by hand is a tedious and time consuming process. While you can get hand spun yarn, when talking about the cloth needed to make a whole outfit hand spun would probably be too expensive.
Also, fibers isn’t necessarily the same as what was found in ancient times. Humans have been tinkering with things we like for a long time before the modern tools of genetic engineering came along. Chances are pretty good the exact breed of sheep or species of cotton used by the ancient practitioners of your pagan path is extinct or extremely rare. There are also many fibers popular in the past that have fallen out of use in modern times. Which means finding a modern version with similar properties.
Textiles are also items that preserve well only in certain conditions. Egypt’s dry and hot climate was perfect for preserving textiles, so we have a lot of samples from ancient Egypt. Other parts of the world cloth rarely survived, and knowledge of what people wore comes from art or writing. In general what did survive is probably going to be clothes worn by the wealthy, and may not reflect what average people were wearing. Examine what pottery designs and other art they had, because that might give an idea of what kind of designs were popular.
In the case of tartan designs, yes tartans relating to clan are relatively modern—16th century at best. However, the plaid design has been found in very old examples of cloth. Before modern times, people were limited to what they could use to dye that was available, and some colors were very expensive and reserved for the upper class because of that.
Personally, I have more respect for anyone putting together a historical outfit who can say “this piece isn’t accurate for this reason, but I can’t get the historically accurate version/ I made a compromise” than someone who would claim they have a 100% historically accurate outfit. It shows they have done their research.
There are plenty of places to find a simple robe or dress or tunic and add on to it later. To shamelessly plug weaving, learning how to do scarves or band weaving can add an excellent touch. Or treat your ritual outfit as an ongoing project where start simple and add things you pick up at pagan gatherings.
In short, if it interests you and you have the money to put it together, go for all the pagan bling you want. If not, put together what works for you and makes you feel comfortable. Our gods can recognize people in modern clothing.