This is the purple brocade outfit that Arwen wears as the Fellowship bids farewell to Rivendell. This costume is seen on the extended DVD of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring and in a flashback sequence during Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
I got the amazing opportunity to make this costume thanks to an offer on LotR_Costume. A costumer in Iowa wanted volunteers to help her with an experiment. She had drafted patterns for others before, but never for someone sight-unseen. She wanted to try this with a LotR costume and asked if anyone was interested. I jumped!
So I sent her a detailed list of my measurements (thanks to my mom for helping with that ;-), according to a chart she had sent me. A few weeks later, she mailed me the muslin (pictured below). It was a fabulous fit! Needed only very, very minor adjustments. Best of all, it looked incredibly true to the movie costume. I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to this fine lady. I got a custom-fitted pattern for a costume, and all I have to do is sew the costume itself.
At the San Jose Flea Market, I found a fabric stall with materials reasonably close to the movie costume fabrics. Best of all, they were dirt cheap — $54 for all four fabrics! I bought a purple and silver brocade in a floral pattern for the overdress, a coordinating satin to line it, a darker purple for the underdress, and a mauve satin for the sash.
Received the final pattern at the end of March.
