The Boromir Costume

The costume: A medieval warrior outfit beloning to my brother, Cimarron.

Inspiration? JRR Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings'

I'm a very big fan of Lord of the Rings. Books first, movies second.

The films do have some very nice, intricate Medieval costumes.

Boromir happens to be my favorite character. So - it's also my *ahem* unbiased opinion that he has the coolest costume in the movies. The thrown-together traveling outfit of a noble prince of Gondor - practical, tough, but still has touches of elegance.

The most notable feature of the oufit is the outer leather tunic:

Using the pictures in the book 'Lord of the Rings Weapons and Warfare' as a guide, I made Cimarron's tunic up of 4 simple regtangular shaped pieces of soft black leather. (yes, my amazing antique sewing machine does leather too!)

The eding is woven metalic colorful trim, and it fastens in front with silver hook clasps.

The trim on the movie tunic is very faded and worn looking, but if you see a really close up picture, it acutally has a colorful pattern too. 

The movie tunic is actually closer to ankle length - but we ran out of leather. :^(

  

The accesories really add to it -  black cloak, woven leather belt, round shield, battle-worn sword, scabbard, tall boots, the horn of Gondor....

And - who could forget the chainmaille?

Cim actually made this knee-length chainmaille shirt by hand.

The aluminum wire rings are 3/16" of an inch wide, and he estimates that there are 80,000 rings in this one shirt. It is edged by brass rings at sleeves, neck, and hem. The weave is European 4-in-1.

That's a lot of work.

If you are currently under attack by Uruk-Hai, this is exactly who you wish to see running to your defense: 

Eventually I would like to add more items to the costume to make more of a reproduction of the movie - The next addition will be the wine red undertunic with gold embroidery on sleeves and collar... 

(for some of the pictures, we just used a red t-shirt)

Then I also want to do the grey silk undershirt, fur-lined velvet brocade cloak (or the fellowship green/gray cloak), and Tree of Gondor leather cuffs.

Cim fighting his brother, Laredo.  

Laredo and I aren't really representing any characters, we just dressed up for the fun of it.

Laredo is wearing a white osnaburg tunic shirt, leather tunic, steel chainmaille shirt (also made by Cim), and scale armour belt.

 

I suppose this might be something Eowyn would wear? Osnaburg underdress, brown linen dress with flared sleeves and gored skirt (made of the same pattern as the Ophelia dress). Braided leather and brass belt, and gaudy 'gold' necklace. 

Yes - a very fun costume to which I hope to add more elements.