Arwen Coronation gown

This my research and progress work for Arwen's coronation gown from Return of the king.

So far i dont have any solid progress as I intend to document it as a go along, rather than write all info after the work is done like I did with Tauriel, this way i dont forget anything (i've a really terrible memory).
First i want to tell my story with how I came to choose this dress (and the many that will follow it). For the longest time I've wanted to make a proper art nouveau dress, and even if this dress doesnt totally fit that, the crown certainly does and the colors and patterns have that very ethereal feeling I get from art nouveau, and I also wanted to take on new challenges, this one having those stupidly embroidered sleeves, metalwork which i've never done before, and overall any movie replica is a worthy challenge if done properly, which i will very much attempt to do here.

Before i actually comitted to making this gown however, i went to have a bit of fabric investigation as i call it to see if it was a possible feat. In Argentina, where im from, we're currently undergoing a bit of a customs mayhem as it's borderline impossible to import anything, therefore i have very limited supplies and can only choose from what i can find locally, making the variety available quite scarse sometimes, BUT miracles do happen more often than not!
I went to my local store where i get quite a few bargains and rare items, and i saw this very translucent, crinkled metallic yellow silk, and as i stared at it, i couldnt remember what i could use it for... So i left without buying it. The next day, i remembered, and i literally ran to the shop lest it be sold already, and got a few yards just in case as they didnt have much (but quite a bit more than i will need for this!)

For comparison, the left picture is my fabric and the right one the actual sleeve of the gown. The picture doesnt show the actual color very well, it's a pale yellow but not as soft as in the pic, to me it's an exact match to the actual fabric as it's crinkled, has metallic threads which faintly reflect light, it's very sheer and when folded and pressed it will hold the shape so it's very easy to achieve the wrinkly look it has in the sleeve picture. I read the fabric was described as being silk mouseline, but sadly im not very good with fabric names in english/spanish as they tend to change names here (eg: here they call chiffon what is wrinkled velvet), so unless i've seen both fabrics with their names it's hard for me to confirm exactly what this is, sorry!

So, after i got this i was set on making this costume, only two main issues remained, getting a suitable color for the overdress, and deciding what i was going to do with the upper sleeves. For the sleeves at first i wanted to aim at getting a similar patterned lace, dye it, bead it, and use that but, even when i did find something similar, i knew the results would be completely different and given the most amount of work on the gown is on the sleeves, i cant really cheat my way into using a ready made fabric, so i have to at least make the sleeves and collar from scratch. 

On to the velvet, i searched and searched, the only remotely close thing i found locally was a very deep lime colored crushed velvet, which i didnt like at all, and dyeing it would probably be my ruin as i tend to mess up my dye jobs, and besides i couldnt find white velvet. I also want to note that we dont have silk velvet here, only cotton, spandex and rayon, but the latter one is too stiff (and expensive). I went to london about a month ago, decided to check for velvet there as i was sure to find at least white silk velvet, but unfortunately i didnt have any spare time to roam around goldhawk rd, and i wanted to go to a shop in the soho known for selling game of thrones fabrics, but i also missed that... Which sucked terribly, because when i got back home and resumed my search, i found on their website they had the exact color i needed. F me. 

Remember i said it's impossible to import anything? Yeah...

And i contacted them, and they told me they had the last remaining 7 meters and they would not be restocking as their supplier no longer produced this color... Yeah.

So, i panicked a bit, first with the price, then the quantity i needed, then the fact i could have bought it while i was there, and then how i was gonna get it now. Luckily, the clouds parted and a miracle shone down from the heavens as a friend was travelling and could bring it home for me, YASSSSS 

So, i got the silk velvet i needed (on its way to me as we speak), and thus sealed my fate into making this costume if you will.

Upper Sleeves. 

Sigh.. how do I even begin with these! I've spent so much money into these and I haven't even started with them... here was my predicament, at first, I saw these two pictures.

On the left there's a photo of a sublimated picture of a swatch of the actual fabric on a napkin given out as a souvenir when one of the movies came out, I read. On the right, a photo of the actual sleeve. So... these two have very different colors, and considering the gown is green, I assumed the right picture would be a photo with too much light in it, and the sublimated swatch would have the real colors. WRONG, a mistake that led me to buying a spool of crochet thread and three different shades of green fabrics that couldnt match, only to realize the thread isn't pale green, but cream, as the pearls in the sublimated swatch also look green when they should be white, duh! I felt so stupid... I went and got a spool of cream thread, and matched it with the first tone of fabric I had, it looked perfect! I've yet to start making the design but the tests i made looked quite promising!

Crown.

This is probably going to be the last piece of the gown I'll be working with, since i've never done any kind of metalwork and it looks to be quite challenging, but what I did start as I was bored and couldnt work on any other bit of the gown were the bead strips that hang from the crown. I got cream, silver and pale green beads, with iridescent and pale green crystal beads to put in intervals along the way. These are actually crystal bicones, but I couldn't find those locally and my budget was crying at the moment so I settled for ovaled beads, which look quite nice so I can't really complain. My issue for now is to find green octogonal pendants to add but since those go on the ends or as decorations i can add those later.

Tauriel - The Hobbit: The desolation of Smaug

Hi! Welcome to my new blog, where I will document my progress towards each costume I make n.n I hope to help people with theirs as others have helped me loads with mine, either by teaching people new things or helping them not make the same mistakes I have. Here we go!

edit 12/19/2015 - finished costume

The first costume I want to talk about is what I consider to be my first real costuming project. It took a lot of research time and work, many hours and trial and error process to accomplish what is, if i'm not 100% happy and would one day consider to remake in order to be more accurate, my most beautiful costume to date.

I will start with the coat. The actual one is made from deerskin in a dark green tone, as explained in the hobbit's Cloaks and Daggers artbook, which has great pictures of the parts of the costume separately, that is this coat (which I think it explains it's actually a top and skirt separate pieces, since the bottom isn't there when she wears it with her travelling cloak), said travelling cloak, and the cuirass. I have also found some great closeups of the details of the bracers that have helped me make them a bit better. But more on that later.

I didn't have the budget to make the coat from deerskin, as it's impossible to import stuff into my country, so I had to make the best with what was available locally, which was a stretchy microsuede. The color was great, a suitable alternative since it's a bit lighter than the actual one, but i was afraid of dyeing it since I bought the last 3 yards they had and it had been quite expensive to ruin it while dyeing (haven't had much luck in that process yet!). I made a small mockup for the top part since I wanted to get the panels as accurately as possible even if the cuirass covers this, and once i was happy I cut it up. When I started to sew it i realized there was no way the fabric alone would work as it stretched while being sown, so the piping ended up looking all wrinkled and it was a mess. I had to redo it 3 times for it to be finally ok, and that was because I had to iron interfacing on the back of each piece so it would have some rigidity and stop stretching. The pro point on this was that the interface stretched on the width so it still kept some of that give so the costume would have a better fit on me, as opposed to it being completely rigid and having to be tailored more.

first stages of the coat being made

most of the coat sides sewn by hand via faggotting (excuse my regular fabric mess lol)

The seams on the bust panels, back panels and sleeves, had piping on each end and were joined by doing a faggotted seam on all the length by hand with crochet thread. The seams on the actual coat seem to cover the entire space between each piece, and mine dont, so you can actually see what's underneath, meaning skin lol, so it might be a double faggotting stitch or something of the sort, im not quite sure. It also has two collars, the first one is part of the whole coat, and it's quite short, the second one is added on the inside and flips outwards as pictured, like the actual one has, as the costume designer explained they decided to add it later while making it and it was easier to add it on top of the first one. The coat is lined with a moss green silk, shiny side out, since the costume designer said the coat (which I later think she meant the travelling coat, but since I might not do that one, I opted to add the detail to this one) was lined in a shiny fabric so that when she moved, it would catch the light and flash.


For the cuirass, I first made a mock up in muslin, to see more or less how the panels would work, I then transfered these to pleather to make a new mock up to see how it looked in a thicker fabric, since this was my first time working with leather and again, I didn't have much and didn't want to screw it up.

2nd mock up, in pleather

cut leather pieces for the actual cuirass

Then I proceeded to cut the actual cuirass, for which I latter added a veg tanned leather panel in the middle with the leaves motif carved and dyed, instead of doing the whole thing out of veg tanned leather, since my machine wasn't really up to the ask of sewing such hard leather. The part I was most afraid of was dyeing the leather and have it match the color of the base leather, but it luckily ended up being a perfect match! The design was drawn by a good friend, The Crystal Shoe since I can't really draw to save my life lol.

veg carved panel before being dyed over base cuirass

carved panel now dyed

I was really very happy with how it looked, since the worst part was over! I was very afraid of working with leather and for a first time I'm very proud of what I accomplished and I ended up wanting to do more!

First costume test

The rest to be done were the bracers, boots and pants. The pants were made from a stretch pleather in brown, the actual ones are probably real leather, and in a reddish brown color, while mine a darker brown, but like I said previously, it was what was available. I made a quick legging pattern, with the panels the pants have and sew them up, not pictured there but I promise I will show them later.

The bracers are also done in veg tanned leather, carved and dyed as well, the design also done by my friend The Crystal Shoe. The actual bracers have tiny leaf buttons for closing, so I tried my best to find something similar in design, and I did, they had to be cut since they had a few more decorations, and sanded, but they looked very much like the original ones.

The boots were bought to be modified later. I painted them a darker brown, and distressed them with acrylic paints to look worn and have grass stains on the front and back of them. The design was painstakingly hand sown on the boot also with crochet thread, and my fingers were absolutely numb after doing this... I later realized, that under the sewn pattern there is a leather applique that is what's sown on to the boot, but I was halfway done so I passed another thread beneath the stitches so it'd give that impression of having something underneath. The zipper is covered by two pieces of pleather, also hand sewn, and closed with cording like the actual ones are, since they were also bought and modified.

Close ups of bracers and boots.

I haven't done any shoots with this costume yet because I consider it to be at 80% completion, since I didnt make either the belt or quiver, and my weapons lie 13000km away from me in the Uk. I considered making a spare pair of daggers so I could wear the costume soon but I don't have time now so I might see to it at a later date. Still, I'm very very happy with this and even if it's not 100% accurate, it was a first time for lots of things and I love how they came out!