Making Arwens Requiem dress from Lord of the Rings

Photo by @heavenlyvisuals

Arwen requiem dress material rundown.

This is what I used for resources and how long it took.

Time stamp: aprox. a month

Started on July 18 ish 2022

Finished on Aug 19 2022

Materials:

Blue velvet-etsy seller: silk fabric

Silver soutache trim - Ribbon Lands on etsy

White silk-LavaillierBougara etsy

Blue silk/satin- secret spark etsy

Beads- alliexpress

sequins-alliexpress

Wash away stabilizer -fabric land

Appliqué trim- ali express

Wig - arda wigs Arwen in natural black

Necklace- Ali express

Building notes off catscratchally website.

Used notes on 1/2 circle sleeve construction and the patterns and photos of the embroidery on the trim.

Simplicity pattern no.4940 For base dress and drafted my own over dress pattern

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Arwen has been on my cosplay list before I even knew I had a cosplay list. She was my fav. LOTR character when I first saw the films 20 yrs ago. It feels great to have finally made and worn her costume! It was not without its difficulties though. I used silk velvet for the first time which was very narrow and I had JUST enough at 7yards. Talk about stressful since it was NOT cheap material. It was hand died so re ordering an extra yard or two would have meant a different dye lot and colour variations. I also had to pay attention to the nap on the fabric and the way the light hit it. The refrences told me it was pointed down.

Ordered swatches to narrow down the colour.

The chosen one:

I had to learn how to embroider her design on the edging for this and then hand places all the beads and sequins. This actually went fairly smoothly since I had done hand embroidery before on Selene. (underworld coat) I settled for chain stitching using metallic floss on silver organza. I first made a mock up of the top and necklines using an old bed sheet. Once it was fitted and shaped properly on me, I used a heat erase gel pen to trace the border of the neckline out on the organza, to match the curves on the mock up.

Then I used the catscratchalley 's site sketches to trace the pattern as best I could, and modded it for the curve on the organza. I did the same with the sleeve bands, though these were rectangular and more strait forward.

I made each trim pattern band about 2” wide and left it un cut in the fabric to put the embroidery hoop over it. I started the outlines with the silver soutache trim, which was a pain to work with. The inner core kept spilling out in places, which I didn’t like but couldn’t fix. First time user error? Regardless I kept going.

I then I beaded the 7mm bugle beads on top of the soutache trim. This made up my outer borders.

I embroidered it all with the traced on design as my reference with the metallic embroidery floss. Some doubled some singled for the thinner flowers. I then added the beading and sequins.

The embroidery and beading took me about a month of work off/on to finish. I worked on it during breaks at work and on evening phone calls with friends and while tv watching.Heck I even took it camping to finish it in time! After completing the trims, I started on the base dress. The silk/satin under dress was flatlined in cotton, with surged edges to stop fraying.

I used a rolled hem for the bottom. The info on the movie version wasn’t clear on this part.

I drafted the mock up for the velvet over dress once this base dress was completed.

I combined the front and side fronts of the simplicity pattern into one piece and cut the front out as such on a fold, since theres no seam lines on the front of the reference. I combined the patterns on an old bed sheet to make it one bug pattern piece. I did have to add a small welt on the sides of the dress to splice in since the velvet was too narrow to fit the whole patterns width.

I used a side back and back piece with a zipper as recorded from the original dress.

I reenforced the over dress neck line with cotton for support and strength. I then took an iron on appliqué trim I got on ali express and ironed it to silver organza strips. I added chain stitch in my silver floss along both sides to add some more detail. The beading here was very random and time was of the essence so I opted to buy the pre made trim here early on in the build.

I hand sewed this now finished trim onto the over dress to finish the neckline.

At this time I also hand sewed the 2” trim collar onto the base dress using clear thread and made sure things were lined up properly at the shoulders. I had to finish some of the beading and embroidery over the shoulders once it was all attached.

The sleeve uppers were originally a light blue chiffon I had on hand which I then over dyed with grey rit dye more. It needed to be a bit more grey to match the dress.

I then cut out the sleeve upper pattern in the chiffon fabric , silk/satin fabrics and wash away stabilizer. This was my first time using this stabilizer and I am so glad I did!

I used a thin zig zag stitch to freehand the flower design I had traced onto the fabric. I opted for a similar blue thread to keep them subtle. I think there was writing of it being more violet but I didnt like the look of it being so different.

Once this was finished I beaded the designs, and dissolved the stabilizer and let them dry. I gave it an extra rinse off as it felt a bit starchy after this process.

I backed the sleeve uppers in the blue silk satin that was also flatlined with its cotton to give it strength to hold the 1/2 circle sleeve and beading.

I then got to work drafting the white 1/2 circle sleeves. This took me a few hours to A- decide on the size/length B- draft a mock and see how it looked before cutting into my beautiful silk. I decided on 1/2 circle sleeves to brush the floor. She had almost a trumpet shape in a couple pictures but I didn’t like the way it looked with my current sleeve base. So I went with the 1/2 circles.

Once the white bell sleeves were mocked out to my liking I went ahead and surged the inner seams and finished with a rolled hem to reduce fraying. I attached them to the dress's sleeve uppers and added the embroidered trim applique to the sleeves with clear thread.

I added some snaps to both dresses at the shoulder and neckline to keep the dresses in place which worked really well! They didnt shift :)

I wore her to Fan expo 2022 to meet the actors that played the 4 hobbits in the Lord of the Rings movies. I got autographs and a photo op with them :) Mission accomplished. I look forward to doing more shoots of Arwen and maaaaybe more dresses too!