Here be a fun video about how many weapons ye can carry aboard a heavy armed pirate, arrrrrgh!  All the weapons in the video, except fer the damascus knifes come from arrrr store.  We custom build the leather harness that holds all the weapons.  Let me know what ye be thinking.

Generally speaking, any pirate show is better than no pirate show, as they be fairly rare on national TV. This be the only year thar be two pirate tv series in the same year. The Treasure Island in 2012 was more of a 3 part made for TV movie, not really a series. Then in 3007 be the Pirate Master the ill fated Reality TV program. The last and long great pirate TV series be "The Adventures of Long John Silver" featuring Robert Newton. In 1956, it aired a full 26 episodes in the USA, UK n' Australia.

We let us expose arrrr part in this program. In the first scene of the series where Tom Lowe, the British spy N doctor uses a blunderbuss to destroy a shinny brass chronometer. Who do ye suppose supplies that nice French Blunderbuss? We also supplied arms to the Black Sails Starz Series as well.

I had high hopes fer CrossBones as it was suppose to be based on Colin Woodard's book, The Republic of Pirates, which be about how a collection of pirate captains attempted to create a democracy in the Bahamas. Instead they changed a non-fiction book into a fantasy TV series about a dead pirate named Blackbeard. Set in the year 1729, 11 year after Edward Teach died at the age of 38, played by the 60 year old John Malkovich. I guess death ages you most severely. The show doesn't explain how Black Beard avoided death, what is plans are, what this republic of pirates is about. There be lots of historical points they don't follow: clothing, speech and women.

Based on the Metascore of 23 critics, 8 were positive, 11 were mixed and 4 be negative. On the IMDb of 1776 review it got a 6.5, while on Rotten Tomatoes it got a 61%. Most pirate re-enactors hated it, while more of the general population liked it. Some TV series start out slow n' get better with time, let us hope that this be the case.

Last Fall we got a request to make some items for ImaCrew, which be an Event Planning and Event Services company in Milian, Italy which specializes in video game promotion. They go hired to do some work for Ubisoft for the Lucca Comics & Game Show in Oct 2013 to promote the Assassin's Creed 4, Black Flag game.  Here are some images the created using arrrrr Blackbeard and Puppeteer Outfits. Not every single item came from us.

I be Tiger Lee, here be a tale of my visit to the old world. I boarded the Brixham Pirate Festival in its 5th year. Not sure what to expect, I arrived at the old seaport village, with about 40,000 visitors. Maybe 10% dressed in that they call “fancy” outfits, what we call cheap Halloween costumes. About 60 pirates were dressed in authentic pirate kits. Most of them re-enactors be very knowledgeable about pirate history and what they be wearing. There be a surprising number of them that actually be carrying n using black powder firearms, as you must have a hard to come by firearm’s license. Black powder is classified as an explosive, so special requirements are required fer storage. They also have firearms converted to fire regular 9mm pistol blanks to avoid the black.

They had two stages of entertainment, one fer kids n another one for adults. They had a mixture of regular musicians playing some pirate like music, plus a number of dedicated pirate bands, some were quite good, just like in the New World. They only had one vendor sell some leather items. My guess be that the hundreds of shop keepers around the harbor didn’t want competing vendors around.

At 5:30pm they had a skirmish at the Golden Hind, a replica of the ship that Sir Frances Drake used to circumnavigate around the world. There are two of the ships, one in London, which be the more authentic one. The ship here is more of a floating museum, except that half of the time during low tide, it sits on the mud bank. I be told that 30 or 40 years ago the Golden Hind in London wanted to dock at St Augustine, but the city told them NO. After 300 years they are still holding a grudge against Sir Frances Drake fer burning down the city, even though they hold a re-enactment called Drakes Raid every year for the past 20 years.

The skirmish (we call an re-enactment) starts out with the authorities check the papers of the English merchant, to discover they be French pirates, so the garrison opens fire to the pirates on board. They have a large wall gun, muskets, blunderbuss, and pistols blasting away at each other. Then the port side troops attack and board the ship. There be a melee aboard an actual wooden tall ship. Cutlasses be clashing all around the ship, with the outnumbered pirates killed or taken prisoners. It was truly wonderful to watch gunfire and sword fighting on a tall ship with pirates and British soldiers in a historic seaport harbor. So much better than most pirate re-enactments that happen in an open field, nowhere near water or ships around. Even pirate event that have tall ships, they normally just have ship to ship cannon firing, but never a boarding action. View Melee Video

This Brixham Pirate Festival once held the World records fer most pirates at one location in 2009, but Hasting currently holds the title with 14,231. This event always happens during the 3 day Bankers Holiday weekend. There be no formal pub crawl event, but the area is filled with a tons of great little pubs and restaurant, just like it must have been during the great Age of Sail two hundred years ago. The pirates here didn’t seem to drink as much as the pirates in the new world. The local shops sold plastic swords n cheap pirate hats to the tourists; there wasn’t much a serious pirate could find to plunder.

Blimey, I did come across an interesting place call Smugglers and Pirates Experience, a large red building that consist of 4 pirate businesses in one place. All the graphics and building be modern n very professional looking. The first be an olde tyme pirate studio, similar to my old business, but the costumes used to dress up be of the fancy pirate outfits shot against a photographic background.

The next business is a 50-minute multimedia experience that cost 7 pounds. It consist of a series of room and tunnels that are set up with a series of screen with project talking characters that tell a story of one certain smuggler, which this area had much real history with. At the end it talks a bit about pirates. I think the pirates be recently added as a marketing pull. It seems that smuggling doesn’t get the respect that pirates get. There be a pirate gift shop of mostly plastic pirate stuff. I was hopping to find a good book on smuggling, but didn’t fine one. The last be a pirate themed restaurant called the Smugglers Retreat. Very targeted to the common tourist and kid market, but not very exciting fer a seasoned pirate re-enactor.

So how does pirating in the New World differ from that in the Old World? In the UK, pirates have been growing; there are currently about 2 dozen events. There is almost no middle class of pirates here, just tourist dressing up in cheap Halloween costumes and serious re-enaactors. It might have to do with the fact that there don’t seem to be vendors for people who want better stuff to buy from. In the New World there is a growing group of pirates that want to wear something better than a quote-unquote “fancy” costume, but is not wanting to spend the time n’ effort of learning to make yar own authentic garb. I think the growth of this middle ground is important fer the overall growth of the pirate market.

The event didn’t have as much to do as pirate festival in the states side, but there be no cost. For the common tourist and even the experienced pirate this be an event worth travelling fer. Overall I be pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy it, yarrrr!

We pirates alway be looking fer adventure, so what could be better than taking to the sky on a light sport aircraft what takes off n' lands right on the water.  It would be grand to spot the next treasure ship from the air.  This might not be as grand as a steampunk airship, but it be smaller n' faster.  So visit my good mate, Charlie Floyd at Duckwing Triking. It fly's out of Duendin, FL.  He be one of only 4 instructors of this type of ampibious trike. The weather was good, with a little breeze, the water warm, and the views of air, land n water to golden during sunset.

Avast lubbers, if ye had not been to Pirate Fashions store in Tampa fer a while, it has been update to double the amount of plunder that can be stored in the hull.  We had to do this to take care of the Gasparilla rush this year. Since opening last year, we have increase arrrr inventory by double in most departments.  So take a the Store Tour of the world's largest physical and on-line pirate store arrrrgh! We also knocked the building down next door, so we have 3 time more parking as well.

Tally Ho, we finally have this gorgeous coat finished. I have been working on this coat fer the past 6 months on the request of some Gasparilla Krewe, Tallship Crew N War of 1812 re-enactors N even Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. What's fun of being a pirate, if there isn't a bad guy to harass.  We used a very hard to find book: Dressed to Kill, to craft this pattern.

his be the coat of arrrrr fine enemy, the British Royal Navy.  Many other European and American Navy N Privateer uniforms we similar in design during the Late Pirate Period of the Napoleonic Wars.

• Made of a Navy cotton and lined with cotton/linen fabric (much cooler that a wool coat)
• High quality gold braid used to trim in a simplified Captains design
• Two real front pockets
This be a Pirate Fashions design, that will take 4 to 6 week to make.

When yar mates be needing something warm on a cold night, here be the St Bernard fer Pirates.  This be 5th in arrrr line of specialized drink products. Pirate Fashions design, not available anywhere else.
• Made of high quality black leather with beveled edges
• This Baldric has a buckle in the front, to make it adjustable to anyone from about 5'5 to 6'5 .
• Comes with one wood shot cup with a skull and cross bone burned into it.
• Come with a one liter (64 oz) oak barrel (you need to soak it in water fer one day, so the wood will swell before using, else yar rum will leak).
• Come with a cork bung at top (which needs to be removed) so the rum will flow through the spigot at the side (replace the cork bung after pouring).
• Connected with Chicago screws, so you an switch it around for left handed draw.
• Be the life the party with this one.

April 6 be the next meeting of the Dueling Society at Ducky's next door (1719 W. Kennedy Blvd, Tampa, FL 33606) at 6:30pm.  Come in Pirate Garb, have dinner n' drink.  Get 15% off yar tab if ye show them a receipt from Pirate Fashions.  We be demonstrating the classic French duel with black powder dueling pistols.

Fer more info visit: http://www.meetup.com/duelingsociety/events/171612692/

Pirate Fashions is be in its 6th year of operation.  When we started this website there be no shell phones looking at it, but now that a third of the traffic be on those magical devices, we have completed sunk the old website (GoLive) to dave jones locker.  This new responsive website (Shopify) automatically changes how it display based on the size of the viewing window.  

We will be adding lot of new features with time.  As with any major switch over there be bug n' mistakes, please sent us e-mail to notify us of any we have missed.