I have a cloak that I found at the thrift for $8. It's full length for me and I'm 5'8. The entire back, hood, and edges are hand embroidered with flowers. It's one of my most prized possessions.

Pro-tip to stop your cloak from weighing on your neck: attach long, heavy-duty strings where you fasten it, then cross those strings over your chest, bring the ends around under your arms and tie them behind your back. Puts all the weight on your chest and shoulders and keeps it in place. Also keeps it closed better. ;) This has been your Renn Fair Advice.

My son is autistic, and when he was 4 he refused to wear a coat because he hated long sleeves. So I bought a cloak for him off of Etsy. When we went out shopping, a guy complimented his cloak and said he hoped we start a trend and bring cloaks back. I hope this video starts the trend that we couldn’t 6 years ago!

I worked for this elderly lady as a carer and one day she asks me to hand her the cloak and I was confused and laughed and I said you have a cloak? And she shuffled to her wardrobe and showed me this midnight blue cloak that she use to wear when she wore to dances when she was younger during the war and it made me want to bring it back into fashion.

I made one for myself in college in 1974. It was the most money I had ever spent on a garment: wool and a thermal kind of silky lining fabric, and I loved that thing! I wore it for several years, loaned it to a friend for her winter wedding, kept it until my daughter grew up, and she now has it. She is a professional photographer and has used it for some photo shoots.

Another factor nobody mentioned is the effect of the sewing machine. Pre-sewing-machine, most cultures had clothing that were made out of big simple shapes--rectangles and triangles, mostly--with as little sewing as possible because it's easier that way. A cloak requires a LOT less sewing than a coat; they're easier to make. But once you have sewing machines, the difference in labor and time costs to make the two garments is a lot smaller, so you don't have that factor keeping the cloak in play.

There's something about voluminous garments that just loudly proclaim DRAMA! MYSTERY! INTRIGUE! ROMANCE! NOSTALGIA! (e.g. cloaks, mantles, great kilts and earasaids).

When we were kids, my parents read us Lord of the Rings aloud at bedtime, and my little brother (maybe 6 or 7 when we started?) was OBSESSED with Gandalf, to the point that he begged my mom to make him a grey cloak for Halloween (but let's be honest he wore it instead of a sweatshirt or coat whenver he could get away with it). When we reached the climax of the Mines of Moria scene, he literally hid the cloak away in the bottom drawer of his dresser and went into mourning. When Gandalf got his New Look, my brother decided old school was still the best school and happily whipped the grey cloak back out and wore it alllllllll the tiiiiiiiime.

TLDR: Cloaks are the best and my brother was adorable.

Rachel: "We're going to get shit done."
Frodo: I'm about to ruin this lady's entire career

Last time I was this early Whiskey Grandpa was just Whiskey Dad

For over 15 years I was a 16th. cent. Highland Scots re-enactor...one of the first things I really loved about our clothing was our ability to "vanish" in nearly any setting short of extremely modern public parks.  There's a few bushes?  Bye.  Reeds on the bank of the pond?  Gone.  Natural hillside with a few trees and dried grasses?  <crickets>  The trick was learning how to take the tail of a pleated great kilt and pulling it up over our shoulders like a cloak...suddenly even "Technicolor" plaids allowed us to simply disappear like we were wearing modern military camouflage...even more so if we were rocking a plaid with already muted colors like greens and browns.  Actually give me a simple grey cloak, a half-circle of wool made from two old military-style blankets?  Even with a simple yarn collar and I could suddenly go from "invisibly" napping next to a tree or by a log to suddenly standing there like Ned Stark in a "Winter is Coming" meme.

“Basically like carrying a big old blanket around” sound comfy.

My sister has a super pretty cloak and we discovered that if I wear it with my wedding dress, I look like an elven princess. I still desperately want to do a photoshoot with it!

I just realized that Editing Rachel also has to edit the shots of Editing Rachel. It's an editception. 🤯

And.. 4 years later this makes me want to get a cloak.

Rachel: worried we won’t be entertained by all the sewing videos
Me: casually binges all the sewing videos she has made and wishing there were more.

In my country, capes where forbiden centuries ago because you could hide a knife or a sword under it and people where constantly killing each other. So the King banned them.

Basic needs: a hot soup on a rainy day
Psychological needs: a group of friends to dramatically run towards an ancient castle while it's storming
Self-fulfillment needs: a cloak for said dramatic run that flutters gently in the wind

Speaking as a history nerd, I can actually speak on why people stopped wearing cloaks. People used to just...not spend as much time outside in the winter. Yes, people used to have to do a LOT of work in a day. But a lot of time in the winter was spent in the house, and going outside was pretty much rushing into the barn, rushing to another house, or taking a wagon into town. But because we now have a lot more leisure time spent outside in the winter, as well as large cities that we live in and spend time in, we just have more need for our arms. And when cloaks were popular, those with arm holes were actually unpopular since they let in the cold. However, because we often have controlled heating nowadays, there's no real reason not to wear cloaks anymore. They're actually my preferred outside garment. I mostly wear a coat when I need to do shopping and don't want to open up a cloak and release my heat bubble.

5:04 Heartbreaking: i actually was zoning out at this point and the clapping did bring me back