Where is the best place to get chainmail tailored?

Mail armour is heavy and bulky if it does not fit appropriately. Hence, it helps to buy chainmail that is not off the peg, but specifically tailored to your size. These are the things to consider:

Authenticity and Expertise

There are experts who directly research and publish historic mail armour in peer-reviewed scientific journals themselves. Some of them also tailor mail armour as commission work. To name some: Nicholas Checksfield, Isak Krogh and Sebastian Völk from Ironskin. Such experts know firsthand what they are doing in historic authenticity. They are your best chance to get as close as possible to historic originals with the latest available knowledge. Other people work from what they have read second-hand or by copying others’ work. If someone lacks the expertise, they might not be aware of it. You will end up with a shirt that is advertised as authentic, but isn’t.

Quality of Craftsmanship

Quality in mail armour is subtle, but makes a huge difference. Some shops offer crudely tailored chainmail with broken rings and halfheartedly placed rivets. They can hide such flaws at first glance or lure you with a low price. Ask yourself these questions: Does the place have a good reputation? What do people say about it? Does the shop offer corrections? Do they take a cast for measurement? Are they established and can be held accountable? It is possible that someone calls themselves a chainmail tailor, but in fact only orders preset sizes from an online shop for you without moving a finger themselves.

Geographical Closeness

A sign of quality is when you can meet the mail maker in person. Not only will the measurements fit better, but also the process of tailoring it to perfection will be smoother. Ironskin is based near Nuremberg in Germany, where there was already a center for the production of mail armour during the Middle Ages. We also achieved good results with clients from overseas who send in a cast of themselves.

Professionality

Some people work with mail armour as a hobby and offer commission work. To make a name, they often undersell themselves and underestimate the workload. That can lead to frustration on both sides. Projects can get delayed or abandoned altogether. Ask for their business tax number and the number of works they have created to assess their professionalism.

Pricing

As a rule of thumb, you should plan with a couple thousand euros or dollars for well-done, historically accurate mail armour tailored to your body. If your budget is in the hundreds of euros or dollars, you are likely to get something less accurate, off-the-peg, and with sloppy rings. Many of the vendors are honest. Yet some will praise their work over the moon and give you sloppy work. You may only notice the difference once you see crappy versus well-made mail armour in person.

Should you get your mail armour tailored or do it yourself?

If making your own mail armour is something you enjoy doing, you should absolutely do it yourself. It is difficult and takes some practice, yet it is fun. For that, you can find the Ironskin tutorials.

If you want to get quality, historically accurate mail armour fitting to your body, and it shall be finished in the foreseeable future without any nerve-wracking experiences of getting lost in the rings, then you should get it tailored for you! For that, the team of Ironskin offers to do it for you swiftly and inconveniently.

Will it help if I buy chainmail and then get it tailored?

No, the chainmail you can buy anywhere is unassessed at best and poor quality at worst. It is hard for your mail maker to know how many broken rings there are in the shirt and how many irregularities there are in the tailoring. That makes it difficult to judge the effort. Thus, you will often get the better price if you sell your old mail shirt and let your mail maker work with their mail material.

That said, if you really like your old shirt of mail for nostalgic reasons, we can of course work with it. And we at Ironskin might also buy your old mail armour if you commission a new one with us.