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Regarding wearing cloaks outdoors-- wear them on brief walks, or out to check the mail, or out walking the dog if you have one. You'll get used to it. Also-- wear them with normal clothes, with a pair of boots. (Wearing a full constume takes a lot more nerve than just wearing "a nice full coat with no sleeves.")
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Sometimes it is so cold that the grey cloak is mandatory walkwear for me! I can tell you that I
don't wear hobbit breeches in cold weather--too many drafts! Suffice it to say that the winter hobbit wardrobe here at
Chez Lyta is military surplus pants with many cargo pockets, one of which holds an East German canteen full of water (I find that
miruvor tends to make the path a bit harder to follow!), a British military wool sweater over one of several Frodoish white buttondown shirts (easy to find at yard sales and thrift stores in many variations). The vest was harder to find, and I had to make it--it broke ten sewing needles in the process! AAARGH!
You're right about the full costume taking more nerve to wear,
Helen. I have worn the full Frodo outfit a couple of times on my walk, but oddly enough, the looks I got were no stranger than the ones I get every day (since I carry Sting whether I dress up or not!)
I can tell you that, besides thrift stores, the upcoming yard sale "season" is a veritable gold mine for finding odd clothing and also material. Last year I bought a large remnant of brown velvet that was
exactly enough to complete one pair of Mr. Frodo hobbit breeches! (Incidentally, the VERY hard to find button attached suspenders proved impossible to find at normal venues, but since Mr. Lyta is an avid collector of all kinds of military surplus, he dug out a pair of old style German submarine pants suspenders, which, although they didn't quite color coordinate, matched the hobbit style of suspender quite nicely!) So my recommendation is yard sales and military surplus stores, the less organized the better for lots of fun digging through the bins!
As a postnote to this, I managed some years ago at one of these dark, unorganized military surplus outlets to find all the components necessary to build an authentically beaten up looking lightsaber for a Jedi outfit I made. The parts cost $3, and replacing the Dremel head that was broken while making it cost $7--total outlay $10! And boy did it look used--not shiny like those things you buy out of catalogs. This one looked like it had been through the Clone Wars and several summers on Tatooine! But I digress...
Cheers!
Lyta (now back to box diving for fun and employment....)