Generic RenFaire Outfit

Costume: Renaissance Faire garb and/or pirate wench
Made: 2002

I made this outfit in the middle of making Arwen's chase dress, which means it's one of the first things I ever sewed. I'd splurged on a fabulous blue suede bodice from Austin Leather Works at GenCon, and I wanted to make a chemise and skirt to go along with it and wear the whole outfit to King Richard's Faire. In the years since, I've worn it to many other renaissance faires, to opening night of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and as part of a costume group for The Guild at Dragon*Con. It's not remotely historically accurate, but it's pretty versatile!

Photos

Construction

Initially, both the chemise and skirt were made straight from the instructions at Dawn's Costume Guide. The skirt is made from a cotton-poly broadcloth and the chemise is a loose-weave muslin. In 2011, I remade the skirt and made another smock/shift/chemise from a finer, thinner cotton. I recut my skirt (initially just a tube of fabric gathered to a waistband) into an infinite-gore skirt that's box-pleated at the waist. This resulted in less bulk at the waist and more fullness at the hem. You can find .pdf instructions for an infinite-gore skirt here. I used the Elizabethan Smock Pattern Generator to make my new smock; it worked very well! You can see the remade skirt and new smock in the last picture above. My hat is from Wheat Goddesses and I love it!

Aragorn as Strider

Character: Aragorn
Costume: Strider
From: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Made: 2002, with many additions and improvements over the years

"He's one of them rangers..."

Ah yes, Aragorn, the manliest of manly men. After I decided to make Arwen's chase dress for myself, Rogue declared that he wanted to be Aragorn. Though I really liked Aragorn's Council of Elrond velvet outfit, he far preferred the grittier Strider costume. My involvement's been limited to the shirt and the Fellowship cloak; he came up with the rest himself. Oh, and I bought him his vambraces. But I didn't make them. That level of leatherworking is still a bit beyond me!

SoCal Renaissance Pleasure Faire, May 2010

King Richard's Faire, September 2003

Construction

Eowyn's Shieldmaiden Dress

Character: Eowyn
Costume: Shieldmaiden Dress
From: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Made: 2002

This beautiful dress first appeared in promotional images for The Two Towers and was almost immediately dubbed the "Shieldmaiden" outfit. Unfortunately, it didn't make an appearance in TTT, but we finally got to see it in Return of the King! Ngila Dickson, the costume designer for the LOTR trilogy, has said that this outfit is meant to convey a "sense of [Eowyn] fighting in her underwear." I think it does a good job of that, and it's very pretty besides!

I didn't make this dress for myself-- I made it for my best friend, Amy, whose favorite LOTR character is Eowyn. After making my Arwen chase dress, I was eager to get my friends to start dressing up as well. Amy liked the idea, so we looked at all of Eowyn's outfits, and she chose this one. This was my second full recreation, and in some ways it was harder than the chase dress, because at the time there were only a few good images of the dress and no tutorial to help me.

Someday I'd love to make this one for myself! I've still got a fair bit of the cream silk left, and it's such a beautiful dress...

Going to see The Two Towers at our college, spring 2003

Construction

Arwen's Chase Dress

Character: Arwen
Costume: Chase Dress
From: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Made: 2002
Awards: Judges' Choice (2004 ConDor Masquerade)

This was the first movie costume I ever tried to recreate, and it remains one of my favorites. It was (mostly) completed in time for Halloween 2002, and improved for the premiere of the Fellowship extended DVD in November 2002. All of Arwen's dresses are of course beautiful, but I think this one is the most functional, which makes it pretty easy to wear for long periods of time (except for those pesky sleeves!).

The dress is based on Simplicity 9891, everyone's favorite generic elf pattern. I literally could not have created this costume without the amazing tutorial from alleycatscratch and their associated mailing list.

Condor XI Masquerade, February 2004 (Winner, Judges' Choice)

GenCon Indy, July 2003

Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD Premiere in NYC, November 2002

Construction