About Us
Make Your Own Medieval is a family run business located in Brisbane, Australia.
We believe in encouraging creativity in Medieval / Historical Re-enactment, LARPing, cosplay and costuming. We sell completed products as well as the materials you need to customise them and make them your own.
Our love of re-enactment and living history lead us to create the business, Make Your Own Medieval. We had two motivations in starting our business.
The first was to help grow the hobby. We identified there was a gap in the Australian market for quality and accurate entry level products that people need to get started in their hobby. Being reenactors ourselves this puts us in a position to be able to advise new members on what may be suitable for their chosen persona and period. We are also working with re-enactment groups to develop gear and ‘starting kits’ for their newer members. We hope that making it easy to source quality gear locally that is reliable and reasonably priced will help make it easier for new people to join in the fun. If your group would like to discuss the development of any new products please contact us.
The second motivation was to encourage creativity in re-enactment. As re-enactors we love to make much of our gear, but also understand that sometimes it can seem daunting. You might not have all the tools or the know-how. We also experienced the annoyance of having to shop at multiple stores and having to factor in multiple shipping costs just to make one item. By the time it all adds up, sometimes it seems cheaper and easier just to buy the item that everyone else has than to make your own. This is why as well as selling materials to make historic items, we also encourage you to customise what you own or our basic products. The same belt with stamping or belt mounts can be very different. If you ever need help customising your items, please let us know.
We are proud to be the sole official Australian distributor of Lord of Battles who are a leading manufacturer of historic replicas, bringing forth the art & craft of the bygone age to the contemporary world. As well as supplying to the living historian, re-enactors, costumers and collectors, Lord of Battles has also supplied many major movie productions including Game of Thrones and the Hobbit.
Based on our own experience and feedback from the re-enactment and LARP community we are continually developing new products in partnership with Lord of Battles with the goals of quality and authenticity.
Between us we have over 38 years of re-enactment and historical crafting experience and you’ll most often see us at events as our 15th century personas, Lorenzo and Cathelina.
Cathelina is the daughter of a Florentine silk merchant. Outside of the shop you’ll most likely find her demonstrating 15th century spinning techniques with a distaff and hand spindle, making finger loop braids, discussing which historic stitch is the best for a particular seam, cooking over the fire and explaining to people that yes, that is a real fire.
In the real world she has a degree in archaeology from the University of Queensland and has worked with various museums. She has a passion for historic textiles, maintains several blogs including 15th Century Spinning and works a day job in the financial sector.
Lorenzo is the son of the guild Master of the Arti dei Legnaioli and a Venetian merchant. Most of the time at events you will see Lorenzo working at the shop wearing his distinctive red Capitanesca hat. He’d like also to spend more time demonstrating crafts such as casting, coin minting and leatherworking.
In the real world he is a Data Scientist. He holds a master’s degree in accounting and corporate law. He is a Certified Practicing Accountant’s (CPA) member and also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and also a diploma in arts.
Previous to this he held a trade as a boiler maker and also worked as an assistant farrier/blacksmith.
His interests are blacksmithing, casting, leatherworking and woodworking. He plans on planting some flax for Cathelina to process and spin and some more mulberry trees for silk worms in the near future.
We look forward to seeing you at our next re-enactment event.
Make Your Own Medieval is a registered Australian business ABN 55 634 642 756