LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS

Arwen's Mourning Gown

Photos of the movie costume taken at Nieman Marcus in Beverly Hills Dec 2003

MY PROGRESS

Feb 6th 2004 I have the bodice and skirt sewn together. This dress is made from silk backed rayon velvet in Navy Blue purchased from Thai Silks. The dress is also lined with navy china silk.

I am working on adding embroidered Sari trim to the sleeves. This trim was cut from the edge of a gold bullion embroidered Sari - similar to the antique bullion trim used on the actual movie costume. Care was taken to shorten the height of the design by removing a few inches of the bullion coils from the top and securing all the loose threads in the back so the rest of the embroidery would not unravel. Blue iris seed beads were then added to the design.

TOP: Original Sari BOTTOM: Altered embroidery with blue seed beads added.

BELOW: back of sari - many loose threads to watch out for!

ABOVE: My finished sari trim added to the sleeve. The edges were finished with gold toned silk ribbon and hand embroidered gold bullion loops. The trim is still at least 2 cm wider than that on the original costume, but this was as much as I could alter the height of the design.