Women’s leather armor, by LaGueuse

Women’s Leather Armor, by LaGueuse

“The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, and does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed upon him.” —Sun Tzu

Much like Dwarves, dress armor, and steampunk attire, LARP and cosplay are areas I keep intending to place more focus upon, but never seem to get around to. Artisan leatherworker LaGueuse has been pretty cool in the past about me using her designs for the blog. Her homepage features dozens of excellent leather armor and steampunk accessories for women larpers and cosplayers. Looking back over LaGueuse’s DeviantArt galleries recently, I found several gorgeous leather armor designs for the blog. My favorite was this excellent scale/leather warrior’s armor for this axe-wielding lady warrior.

I remain a huge fan of well-crafted leather armor and feel it’s badly underrated as an armor type. As well as being cheaper and lighter than most steel armors, it provides far more absorption and deflection than what its armor rating in most table-top RPGs might suggest. Properly treated and hardened, even thin leather can offer excellent deflection against arrows, spearheads, and glancing blows from swords or axes. Heavy spaulders protect our heroine’s shoulders from disabling blows, with vertical sections to prevent enemy blades from glancing toward her head. Segmented leather plates and leather scales offer additional protection for our heroine’s upper arms. Meanwhile, a flexible leather cuirass keeps our warrior’s torso safe from arrows and spearheads with more scales positioned over her heart. Lastly, additional leather plates and scales protect her hips and lower abdomen.

Beneath her leather cuirass, our heroine sports a black arming shirt to keep the leather from chafing the crap out of her skin. a black waist-cloak or battle-skirt keeps her legs warm and safe while traveling or in combat. Additionally, she wears leather vambraces to protect her arms from severing blows and leather boots for traveling in all kinds of weather.

The only recommendation I can think of for our heroine are gloves to reduce wear-and-tear on her hands while swinging that axe around. Stellar design, all around.

Huge thanks to LaGueuse for letting me borrow her designs. Feel free to check her Facebook for more photos and costume designs. As always, thanks for reading, folks. Take care and stay awesome!