Fashioning the Viking Age

Velklædt i Vikingetiden / Fashioning the Viking Age started as a collaboration between Ulla Mannering and Charlotte Rimstad at the National Museum Denmark; Ida Demant from Land of Legends in Lejre and Eva Andersson Strand at Centre for Textile Research at University of Copenhagen. The aim of the project was to create new and archaeologically well-founded interpretations and reconstructions of Viking Age textiles and clothing. The project was funded by the VELUX FOUNDATION with a grant from the Museum Program. It was launched in September 2018 and ended in April 2023. You can read more about the project and get access to its publications here.

From September 2022 to June 2026 Eva Andersson Strand has been the PI of the project Textile Resources in Viking Age Landscapes (TRiVAL) in which Charlotte Rimstad and Ulla Mannering were collaborators. The project was funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF) with additional funding from the Agnes Geijer Foundation. You can read more about the project here.

2024-2025 Charlotte Rimstad worked on the project Women’s Clothing in the Late Viking Age, where she investigated female clothing in the Late Viking Age. The project was funded by Kulturministeriets Forskningspulje. You can read more about the project here.

In August 2024 the Textile Colours in the Viking Age (TeCoVa) project was launched at the National Museum of Denmark. The project aims to identify the dyestuffs used in textile production from the Late Iron and Viking Ages and to assess how textile colours interacted with beads and metal colours in clothing (in a wider social and cultural contexts). Danish Viking Age textiles and clothing ornaments have never before been subjected to a large systematic survey, and samples are selected from a wide range of Danish and North Atlantic grave finds and other contexts. The project is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF) and finish in June 2028. You can read more about the project here.

In August 2024 Luise Ørsted Scharff Brandt launched the project Imported fur in Viking Age Denmark and its importance as a visual marker (VaFur) in which Charlotte Rimstad and Ulla Mannering are collaborators. The project is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF). You can read more about the project here.

The network Cloth Cultures in and Beyond the Viking Age was launched in 2017 with participants from Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen, the National Museum of Denmark, University of Uppsala, the Swedish History Museum Stockholm and Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. The network offer state-of-the-art knowledge with analysis of material evidence as well as written sources, and a forum for discussion and dissemination.

You find more project publications here.