The Princess Bride Wedding Dress

The  inspiration:

Wedding dress from the movie 'The Princess Bride'.

The movie dress appears to be a semi sheer blue/silver floral brocade with a high waistline, lacing in front. Extra long slim sleeves with flowing oversleeves. Bodice appears to be decorated with some type of silver metallic lace. Cream/white sheer chemise accented with jewel trim.

My fabric -  a vintage cream/silver brocade drapery in a scroll and diamond pattern. The moment I saw the fabric, the Princess Bride dress and the Ever After 'breathe' dress came to mind. The Princess Bride dress won.

I used a combination of several pattern to achieve the look of the dress.

Bodice:

 Based on the Regency short stays from the Sense and Sensibility Underthings Pattern

 Over sleeve:

 Patterns of Fashion: The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women c.1560-1620 

by Janet Arnold - oversleeve pattern pg. 113

Under Sleeve:

based on Patterns of Fashion 1: 1660-1860

by Janet Arnold - Regency sleeve pattern pg. 48

Skirt:

based on skirt from Sense and Sensiblity Regency Gown Pattern

Inspiration Pictures:

The closest historical basis I could find for the dress were a few Italian Renassaince pieces, and some silhouettes from the late 13th c.

I thought about jumping off something for the photo shoot, but *ahem* decided against it.

The sleeves turned out perfect - the Tudor-era over sleeve pattern from the Janet Arnold book was just the right shape, length, and drape. I did have a little trouble during construction, though. The sleeve was so heavy that it was pulling  the bodice down off the shoulders! But - after I added a drawstring at the neckline, that really helped to keep everything in place.

I also had a bit of a dilemma about how to work out the front lacing opening on the bodice with the ungathered skirt front. I finally decided to make the dress two pieces. Thus, the skirt is not attached to the front-opening bodice, it is back opening and attached to 'suspenders'. (I saw this method on a Regency dress in 19th C. Fashion in Detail) The bodice laces with cream ribbon through hand sewn eyelets.

In the movie, Buttercup's dress appears to have a semi-sheer chemise underneath. I decided to make mine out of two layers - one of muslin and one of sheer voile. That way I could get the look of the soft sheer, but not the immodest transparent-ness. :^) The trim on the chemise is a broken vintage pearl necklace that I hand-stitched into place.

The crown is a rhinestone tiarra that was leftover from the drama days.

Skirt is plain in front, at sides and back has large pleats facing the center back, and comes to a slight train at hem.

Yeah! Now I just need a place/event to wear the dress - and my 'true love' to show up, right?

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.

The Blue Ophelia Pre-Raphelite Dress

The inspiration: Ophelia by JW Waterhouse, 1905

Possibly my favorite inspired reproduction costume. The first time I saw the above 'Ophelia' painting - I just fell in love with the dress. The elegant drapes...the unusual color combinations - and the layers of different textures.

I hadn't considered making it until we planned to have a Medieval faire at our house. Then I started examining my fabric stash - and found the cadet blue wool - exactly like the color in the painting! It was a medium/ligh weight crepe that I had originally ordered for 1860s dresses (before I found out it wasn't a period wool weave).  Since I wasn't really going for a historical repro on this particular dress, (the inspiration was Medieval/Victorian fantasy art after all...) it seemed quite perfect. (Though, if I had wanted to exactly replicate the painting - I think a better choice would have been a blue/lavendar shot silk. See the different colors shining in the dress fabric?)

The pattern I used for a jumping off point was a supposedly historical Medieval one cut entirely of geometric shapes: Long rectangular body,  skirt made up of large triangular gores inserted in slits from hip to hem. I put quite few more gores than the pattern called for - I wanted to have a skirt that was full circle.

After the dress was put together, I then shaped some of the seams to be more form-fitting. I didn't have any gold fabric to do the wide band at the hem - but I did cut up the edge of a scrap silk sari veil for the gold 'belt'. (the dress had ended up looking a little too form-fitting, so it was a good way to break up the drape/color visually.)

The dress is put on over the head - there is no fastening or opening in front or back. The dress in the painting appears to have some type of opening with hidden fastenings at the center front - but I decided to stay simple.

 Half length sleeves with a nice drape at the elbow. The under dress is red-gold shot silk. Lovely stuff.  It follows basically the same lines as the dress, except that it is front opening with a drawstring neck, and is shorter, without the skirt gores. I decided to let the silk show a bit at the neckline to keep it from being too low. I also half lined the sleeves in silk. 

The neckline is embroidered with gold thread - in a flowing scrolls pattern that I drew out. If I had had more time - I would have liked to research Medieval ebroidery techniques. (I'm afraid I'm not very knowedgeable about embroidery anything....) But it was fun - and I think it gives basically the right effect! There is also a line of embroidery around each sleeve.

 

 Things I would do differently:

-Make the underdress longer and fuller with a wider neck.

- Do a more complicated ebroidery pattern

-Slightly narrower and longer under sleeves

I was also inspired by this painting, as the dress is almost identical:

Miranda- The Tempest by JW Waterhouse,1916

For the photo shoot - we were able to find the right color of wild-flowers to match the picture quite well. We even found a tree with a large knot - just like the painting!

Showing off the full skirt. Look closely and you can see the lines of the triangular gores.

The emroidered orange silk slippers were a present from my brother.

I highly recommend this pattern for medieval tunic dresses - it's extremely comfortable and fun to wear.

An incredibly fun inspiration project!