Best Viking Costumes for Kids and Adults, and Why Real Vikings Had No Horns

The best Viking costume for a school Viking day is a belted tunic with trousers, or a long dress with a cloak, because that is close to what Viking-age families wore. Horned Viking helmets are a 19th-century invention, popularised most of all by the costumes for Wagner's Ring cycle in 1876. Our Girls Viking Costume and Boys Deluxe Viking Costume cover both looks for ages 7 to 14, and we make adult Viking fancy dress too.

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What should a child wear for a Viking day at school?

A child on a Viking day should wear a plain tunic, trousers, and a belt, or a long dress with a cloak, with hair plaited and no horns. Vikings sit in Key Stage 2 history in England: the national curriculum lists "the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the Confessor" (Department for Education). The National Museum of Denmark says Viking children's clothes "reflected those of their parents", with young girls in smocks and young boys in tunics and trousers (National Museum of Denmark).

Read the school letter before you buy anything. One teacher resource for Viking days tells staff that plastic horned helmets "must not be brought to school" and suggests teachers discourage pupils from bringing toy swords and shields too (CurriculumVisions). A school dressing-up sheet adds that "Both boys and girls can play warriors" (Queensway School), so a girl in a warrior pack fits the brief as well as a boy does. The packs below say exactly what is in the box, so you can see which ones suit a horn-free history day and which ones suit a party.

Did Vikings really wear horned helmets?

No horned helmet from the Viking Age has ever been found: Denmark's famous horned helmets, from Viksø, are Bronze Age (Aarhus University). The near-complete Viking helmet found at Gjermundbu in Ringerike, Norway, has "crucially, no horns" (Eleanor Barraclough, Oxford University Press blog). Britain has its own find: the Yarm helmet, dug up by workmen in Yarm in the 1950s and dated by a Durham University team in 2020 to most probably the 10th century, is a plain, undecorated iron helmet with spectacle-shaped face protection (Medievalists.net; Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo).

Horned Vikings are a 19th-century invention. Illustrators of the poem Frithiof's saga drew horned helmets, and the costume designer Carl Emil Doepler probably did most to fix the look, with horned helmets for the first Bayreuth staging of Wagner's Ring cycle in 1876 (Barraclough). The Viksø helmets date to roughly 1000 to 900 BC, well over 1,500 years before the Viking Age began (Aarhus University).

So the horns are theatre, and for a party that is the fun of them. A horned helmet says Viking from across the room. For a school day where the teacher is checking history, leave the helmet in the bag.

Boys Deluxe Viking Costume

Four pieces in one pack: a fur-trimmed brown top, matching trousers, a light brown belt, and a horned helmet, in M, L, and XL for ages 7 to 14. The Boys Deluxe Viking Costume works both ways round: helmet on for a party or a World Book Day parade, helmet off for a history day, when the top, trousers, and belt still read as a Viking warrior.

What did Vikings wear day to day?

Viking men wore a tunic, trousers, and a cloak, and Viking women wore a strap dress over an undergarment or smock, with everyday clothes made from local wool and flax. The National Museum of Denmark describes the man's cloak "fastened with a brooch" and the woman's strap dress held at each shoulder by a shell-shaped brooch, often with a string of beads between the two (National Museum of Denmark). Belts mattered because the clothes had no pockets, and the British Museum's KS2 pack reminds pupils that Vikings "didn't have buttons or zips", so brooches held clothing together (British Museum).

Two home-made additions make any of the packs below more accurate for a history day: a pair of round badges or card brooches pinned at the shoulders, and a string of chunky beads between them. Our kids historical costumes range sits alongside if the class moves on to another period.

Girls Viking Costume

The Girls Viking Costume is the everyday-Viking look in one pack: a layered brown and white dress, a light brown robe, and a knotted white rope belt, in 100% polyester, for ages 7 to 14 (M to XL). There is no helmet in the box, which suits a strict history day. The listing's own wearing tip is boots and plaits, and both come from home.

Vikings share the KS2 programme with the Anglo-Saxons, and our guide to school history day costumes covers the Anglo-Saxon packs, alongside Victorian, Tudor, and evacuee days.

Were there really Viking women warriors?

At least one Viking-age woman was buried as a warrior, though historians still debate how common that was. Grave Bj 581 at Birka in Sweden, dug up in 1878 and long assumed to hold a man, turned out on DNA testing to be a woman buried with a full set of weapons. The researchers wrote that "Bj.581 was the grave of a woman who lived as a professional warrior", while also noting that only 75 of the more than 1,100 excavated burials at Birka hold any offensive weapon at all (Price and others, Antiquity, 2019).

The shieldmaiden, then, is part history and part saga, which makes her ideal fancy dress. Two of our Viking packs take the warrior route, one for girls and one for women.

Girls Viking Warrior Costume

Five pieces: a red dress, a cape, a headband, arm cuffs, and boot toppers. The Girls Viking Warrior Costume has an elasticated waist and a centre back hook-and-loop fastening, so it goes on fast on a school morning, and it is the only pack here that starts at age 4 (S to XL, ages 4 to 14). For a party, pair it with our Kids Viking Warrior Helmet with Horns: one size, about 56 to 58cm round, for ages 6 and up, with two bronze-tone horns that push into place.

Women's Cloaked Viking Costume

Our shieldmaiden pack, the Women's Cloaked Viking Costume, has a fitted tunic dress, a sweeping cape, a belt, wrist guards, and a half helmet. It is sized by UK dress size from S (8 to 10) to XL (20 to 22), and the listing says the fit runs close to size, so check the size guide before you order. No axe comes in the pack, so pair the costume with our Fake Foam Axe Prop: about 24 inches of lightweight foam with blunt edges that its listing calls convention-friendly.

Are Viking costumes only for school days?

Viking costumes are not only for school days: Halloween parties, themed nights and Viking festivals all call for one. About half of the Viking costume orders on our UK website between 23 April and 25 October 2026 came in the first 25 days of October (our own GA4 purchase data). Adult Viking fancy dress has its own winter calendar too. JORVIK Viking Festival in York, billed by its organisers as Europe's largest, expected around 500 re-enactors and nearly 50,000 residents and visitors in 2026 (York Archaeology), and the 2027 festival runs from 8 to 14 February (JORVIK Viking Festival). In Shetland, Lerwick's Up Helly Aa fire festival is held on the last Tuesday in January every year (Up Helly Aa), and since the 2023 festival its squads have been allowed to include women, after organisers lifted the men-only rule in 2022 (Shetland News).

Hair is worth the effort, because Vikings took grooming seriously. A University of York archaeologist notes that Vikings "often carried combs with their swords and knives on their belts", with deer antler the material of choice, and the Coppergate dig in York turned up many of them (University of York). A wig with plaits does the same job at a party, so we pair each adult pick below with a wig. For other periods, from Romans to Tudors, see our adult historical costumes.

Men's Viking Costume

The Men's Viking Costume is a bodysuit with the armour attached, plus a horned helmet, arm ties, and leg ties, in adult sizes up to XXL. With the armour attached to the bodysuit there are fewer loose pieces to keep track of on a night out, and the listing suggests sizing up if you are between two. The listing notes the axe is not included, and there is no wig in the pack list: our Viking Wig and Beard adds a brown wig and a braided beard in one size for most adults.

Women's Viking Warrior Costume

The Women's Viking Warrior Costume has the most pieces of any pack here, six in all: a brown dress with an attached cape, a buckled belt, arm cuffs, leg warmers, a horned helmet, and a shield. It is sized by UK dress size from S to XL, and the adjustable belt takes in the waist once the dress is on. Pair it with our long white-blonde wig with mini plaits, one size for most adults, for the plaited shieldmaiden hair.

What is in each Viking costume pack?

Each Viking pack lists its contents on its product page; the table puts all six side by side. No pack includes footwear, and none lists a sword or an axe; the Women's Viking Warrior is the only one with a shield, so check it against your school's letter.

Which Viking costume size fits, and how do you clean it?

Kids' Viking costumes go by age and adult ones by UK dress size or chest measurement, and every listing has a size guide with the numbers. For the kids' packs, M fits 7-9, L fits 10-12 and XL fits 12-14, and the Girls Viking Warrior adds an S for ages 4-6. Every costume goes through over 30 measurement checks. All of our kids' products are safety tested by accredited labs. Between two sizes? The Men's Viking listing says go up, and for the kids' packs the size guide on each page gives the measurements to check.

For the fabric in all six packs, the care is a cold hand wash and an air dry. Take the helmet off before washing the Boys Deluxe set, as its listing says. The separate helmets in our range are spot clean only, so wipe them with a damp cloth rather than soaking them. Keep every piece out of the washing machine.

How do you dress a family or a couple as Vikings?

Match an adult pack to a kids' pack with shared details, and the family reads as one crew. Three pairings work from the range above:

• Parent and son: the Men's Viking Costume and the Boys Deluxe Viking Costume both come with a horned helmet, which ties the two looks together.
• Parent and daughter: the Women's Viking Warrior Costume with the Girls Viking Warrior Costume gives two warriors in cape and arm cuffs.
• Couple: the Men's Viking Costume with the Women's Cloaked Viking Costume, a raider and a shieldmaiden, for a festival or a Halloween party.

Romans next term? Our Roman and toga fancy dress guide runs from the classroom to the toga party.

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