I heard a similar arguement in Civil War reenacting from those who were known in the hobby as "farbs" -- my fellow reenactors will recognize the term, for those who are not reenactors, it is slang for someone who doesn't care about authenticty and "doing it right". Now, I'm not saying you are a "farb" because you made a similar statement -- just using an example here. No offence meant or intended.
Folks who criticized those of us who wanted to be as authentic as possible usually would say, "how many people actually care that your uniform is authentic?" or something similar. Yes, there are probably very few out there who actually do -- but it wasn't about them, it was the fact that
Iwould know if I was being historically incorrect. The park service trained me to be as authentic as possible so the public could have a quality living history presentation, whether they knew everything that went into that program, uniform, etc. was another matter.
So, to me, the "peace of mind" that I have a quality-made garment is practical -- my frugal Scots grandmother would say the same thing. Notice I didn't say that the quality was only from Scotland, though.
Regards,
Todd
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