Arwen – Blood Red | 2024

Arwen – Blood Red Dress | Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King

Made for : Matching Lord of the Rings Ladies costume with Anna.

Background : It’s the 20 year anniversary of Lord of Rings : Return of the King this year so no better time to FINALLY do a LotR’s costume. I love all of Arwen’s dresses but chose to do this one first because I had a pattern that suited it and found some lovely red and blue velvet at the fabric store.

Things used :

I started this project off by purchasing the recommended amount of fabric on the back of the pattern packet only to get it home, start cutting out the pieces and realizing that I need twice the amount of fabric because my velvet had a directional pile and could only be cut one way.

I started by making a mockup first to get a feel of how the pattern went together and what I’d need to change in order to get it looking as close to Arwen’s as possible. First and most obvious change I made was the shape of the bottom half of the sleeves. I wanted them much more full so I cut mine as half circles instead. Next was adding a 5 inch train all around them bottom edge of the skirt hem. Then the neck line.

Arwen’s dress is technically two dresses in one. The overdress (blue) and the underdress with sleeves. For the mockup I altered the dress pattern’s neckline by lowing the scoop in the front and back, leaving off the collar piece and sleeves. I then made an unaltered version with the collar and sleeves attached to be worn under the overdress. Happy with how it was all looking, I moved on to the actual fabrics.

The overdress was made from a blue upholstery velvet. I made it using the mockup as the new pattern. Once sewn together, I added a bias trim around the neckline made from a paisley velvet. It closes in the back using an invisible zipper.

The underdress is made as a crop top. It finishes at the waistline and is made from a blue cotton. It then has the sleeves and collar piece attached and does up in the back via an open ended zip.

The collar piece is paisley velvet lined in a red satin (left over from Padme). I then added a gold, floral embroided trim along one edge and a thicker, braided gold trim along the other.

The sleeves begin with a paisley velvet at the shoulder and are trimmed in the same gold trims as the collar piece at the elbow. The bottom half of the sleeves are made from the same upholstery velvet as the main part of the dress but in red. They’re half circles lined with left over fabric from my Padme costume. They’re attached to the crop top. This also saves the main dress from dragging and warping under the weight of the sleeves.

I gave myself two weeks to make this project thinking it would be extremely time consuming. All up, including the mock up I made, it took 5 days. I couldn’t believe how easily it all came together.

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