LITTLE ACORNS - When our 2 sons were little we took them to Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire for a day out to see the Annual Robin Hood Festival.  I made them outfits and dressed them up as mini Robin Hoods. We had such fantastic comments from lots of other visitors there who said how gorgeous they looked and wanted to know where we bought their outfits from, this happened again the next time we took them so I decided to approach the buyer at Sherwood to see if they would be interested in my ideas.

To cut a long story short, within a few months the Forest's Visitor Centre Shop was selling our felt Robin Hood Tunics to the public, along with our Arrow Quivers and Money Bags and so in 1990 our business was born.

Very soon we realised that there was very little for budding Maid Marian’s to wear so we introduced our cute Maid Marian Dresses, Shoulder Bags and our colourful Maiden’s Circlets, which were a runaway success.

Emboldened by the success of our products at Sherwood we then approached English Heritage and, as luck would have it, they were looking to introduce a children’s range of gifts and playwear to supplement their existing tourist souvenir range. Our Knights, Tudor & Elizabethan ranges costumes were soon gracing the shelves in many of their Heritage Gift Shops along with our Viking, Jester and Pirate goodies.

The Royal Palaces - which include Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London, the National Trust and many other castles, museums, historical and tourist sites throughout the UK have all come to know and love Outfits for Outlaws products. We have also sold direct to the public on many occasions at Medieval Fairs in the south east, including ‘England’s Medieval Festival’ at Hurstmonceux Castle in Sussex.  It’s a real joy for us to see so many happy children using their imagination, charging around in our costumes, pretending to be a valiant Knight riding off to do battle or a dashing Robin Hood rescuing his fair Maid Marian from the evil Sheriff of Nottingham or a marauding Viking ready to take on a Saxon defending his homestead.

Quite by chance we discovered another fantastic small business based in Wiltshire, who produce the most beautiful and lovingly hand crafted wooden toys. We immediately fell in love with their range of wooden toy swords & weapons and now sell these to complement our Outfits for Outlaws dress-up costumes and accessories. They have continued to expand their eco-friendly range and now, as well as their historically accurate 2/3 scale swords, bows & arrow and shields we have their full size Historic Replica Oak Blade Swords for sale. These include a full size Knight’s Hand-an-‘arf sword at a massive 43” (110 cms) long, a Roman Legionary’s Gladius and a Centurion’s Pugio Dagger. The blades are all solid oak and really must be seen to be appreciated as photo’s don’t really do them justice, we will be adding more of these very soon as their range expands.

MIGHTY OAKS – Now we also sell to customers in Europe and the USA through our Ebay shop. We’ve also recently added a range of imported adult costumes for LARPers, Re-enactors and grown up wannabe Knights, Vikings or Robin Hoods with Damsels included to even up the score.

All of our Outfits for Outlaws products are made to my own original designs and are protected by automatic design and intellectual property rights. Where we have lead others have obviously followed, and although imitation is said to be a form of flattery, it can on many occasions be quite irksome to be flattered in this way !

Please have a look at our Ebay shop, I’m sure you will find many things there to delight and inspire you and your children’s creative imagination, whether it be bold Knight’s fighting dragons, Henry the VIII chasing Anne Boleyn, Robin Hood wooing Maid Marian or the Saxon King Alfred defeating the Viking leader Guthrum. Thank you.

Please note that from Saturday 27th June the ebay shop will not dispatch until Monday 6th July