The Kingmaker canvas gambeson

Two-piece universal under armour padding

Whether you are heading to your weekly fencing practices with just a couple of essential pieces of protection or preparing for a heavy combat tournament in full gear, this versatile two-piece gambeson is the best choice for your under-armour layer. The combination of the short breathable part with quilted sleeves and the long sleeveless quilted vest guarantees an excellent level of comfort and mobility without any loss of padding and protection. The overlapping of the sleeves with the shoulders of the vest ensures gapless coverage – even if your combat style resembles a windmill.

The gambeson is made of sturdy canvas fabric, lined with natural flax linen and finished with soft leather at the edges, which includes the stand-up collar, arm-holes, front and bottom edge of the vest and forearm slits and edges of the sleeves at the bottom piece. The canvas has a beautiful weave, is tough and can take a rigorous beating - it happens to be the same premium canvas we use for our tents and viking vests.

The inner piece is a crop-top body part made of two layers of natural linen with canvas sleeves doubled with flax linen as well and padded with thick cotton batting. The sleeves are wide enough at the upper part not to affect your movements and taper in narrower from the elbow to the wrist for a great fit. By leaving out any buttons or lacing at the bottom of the sleeves, we have allowed room to comfortably wear bracers or an arm harness. The front lacing of the inner piece of the gambeson allows a tight fit so that your padding always stays where it is supposed to be. You can trust it not to ride up or crumple under your shiny armour!
The straight cut vest can be laced tight, with significant overlap under the lacing allowing you to get the perfect fit. The arm-holes are wide enough to fit the sleeves of the inner piece and to provide you all the freedom of movement you might need. We decided not to pierce the gambeson through: the lacing points for your arm harness and pauldrons are created with the help of leather squares. A similar approach is used to fasten the vest – there are no eyelets and the laces go through the reliable leather squares without breaching the gambeson itself.

This incredibly thought through item will make you forget about all the other options. The only possible exception is the most luxurious version of this gambeson made of natural velvet.

To have a have a better picture of our gambesons and padded armor, you may check out our article covering this topic.

To check how to measure yourself please click here.

Please contact us if you have any additional questions.