Jude's Examples
Glasgow, Scotland
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Borowyn
Inspired by The Fellowship
of the Ring, and not having the hair to be Arwen, I decided to build a
“Borowyn” costume.
Like lots of people, I went to see Lord of the Rings,
and fell utterly in love with it all. I adored the hobbits, loved the
special effects, but most of all I loved Boromir. And, playing a warrior in
our local roleplaying group, I decided that what I wanted most was a Boromir
outfit.
I’m was a fairly experienced dressmaker at the time –
I’d made a few evening dresses, some tabards and tunics for our LRP group,
costumed a couple of shows and even made a wedding dress once. I’d never
done anything where I’d had so little idea of where to start before, and the
idea of all the fabric decoration was scary.
Of course, I differ from Sean Bean in a few ways.
I’m five-foot-six, nine stone and a girl, and I’m not on the same budget as
Peter Jackson. At my disposal I had forty pounds worth of fabric vouchers
that I got for my Christmas from my Gran, and just about an entire cow’s
worth of black suede which had been a birthday present.
So, armed with cash and cow, I set out to make my
very own “Borowyn” costume.
The Silk Tunic
As far as I could tell, the tunic in the movie was
wine-red silk, embroidered with gold beadwork. Having reddish brown hair, I
clash something rotten with burgundy, and decided that I’d rather use dark
green, and that green and gold was far too Irish for my tastes. I managed
to find forest green silk dupion at £5 a meter in my local fabric shop, and
bought four meters of it, then decided on silver beadwork, and the long
arduous task of hand beading the sleeves began.
I drafted a very basic sleeve head, then extended it
to be a mid-length tube sleeve, which fell to just below my elbow. It was
designed to be worn over mail, so is much broader than my actual arm. I
marked out a grid of points an inch and a half apart all over it, and sewed
a single silver seed bead on at each grid point. Every fourth bead I worked
a star on, using twisted silver 7mm bugle beads and seed beads to make a
snowflake pattern – you can see this on the photo, but it’s not very clear.
Round the lower edge I worked a half-snowflake at every bead to make a
border, then embroidered a few more bringing it up to a point on the lateral
sides. As you can see in the photos, it’s not a perfect copy of Boromir’s,
but it’s close enough.
I beaded around the standing mandarin collar as well,
with a single line of snowflakes going all the way around.
I then cut out the body. It’s a very basic tunic
stretching to knee length, and it’s split front and back. It’s lined in a
dull green cotton that I had lying around the fabric bin, but the sleeves
and the collar are lined in the same silk. I made up the body, attached the
collar and the sleeves to their own linings, sewed the sleeves and collar
onto the body, then hand stitched the lining of the body to the sleeve and
collar linings at the armholes and the neck.
For the fastenings down the front, I decided to use
(eek!) popper studs at one-and-a-half inch intervals. Shame on me, but it’s
quick and convenient, and they don’t catch on armour. To make them look a
bit nicer, I embroidered little snowflake designs around them in bugle and
seed beads.
That was the silk tunic done. I moved on to the
leather.
The Leather Surcoat
Working
from one of my historical pattern books, I cut a very basic doublet shape,
with very little fitting at the side seams. I added a long skirt piece to
each body piece, meaning that I had eight pieces – four upper body going to
my waist, and four ‘skirt’ pieces stretching to a little below my knee. It
took a hell of a lot of leather- six skins about four foot square.
I seamed them down the sides, but left the skirts
split front, back and at the sides. As it was leather, I didn’t bother
hemming it, but instead ran a fine silver embroidery thread all the way
around the neck, front and bottom of the skirts.
For closures, I used popper studs again. I have no
defence. Some day I’ll replace them with metal frogs, when I find the right
ones. They look quite like big silver buttons.
Wearing the Darn Thing
There’s no point in making the costume if no one gets
to see it – and, fortunately, there was an adventure on that very weekend.
I signed up to play my character, and put my kit on.
The first layer was a black silk shirt that I love,
which I covered with a front lacing black leather bodice. You can’t have
too much armour on your chest, I find. I then put my ‘gambeson’ over the
top of that – as it doesn’t show, it’s thoroughly non-authentic, and
consists of an old leather jacket that I covered in studs. It stops the
mail rubbing on my shoulders, and fills in the gap between my sleeves and my
vambraces.
My legs had my favourite pair of kit trousers on – a
soft blue-grey cotton pair that I made when I went to my first fest-style
event. You can just see them on top of my second hand brown boots in the
full length photo.
Then, the mail shirt. This I made a few years ago
during exam season; I destroyed my hands, but at the end of it I had a
persian weave mail shirt. No european ever wore anything like it, but it’s
far lighter than standard 4-1 mail, and being a bit of a lightweight I like
my mail to be wearable for six hours at a stretch. The links aren’t riveted
either, but it still weighs about 2 ½ stone. I have to belt that round my
waist to stop the full weight of it resting on my shoulders.
Silk and leather went over the top of the mail,
adding another ½ a stone to the ensemble. I borrowed soft studded leather
vambraces and greaves from my friend Jez, and added my back-scabbard, two
belts, a side scabbard and my shield (made out of paper mache and an old
belt!).
By this stage I was six inches shorter than I’d been
before the kit went on, but I felt fine.
Total Cost
I don’t like to think about how much the cow must have
cost, but I figure I could do it again for about £60 worth of heavy hides.
The silk was £20, but that was in the sale, and I went through four tubs of
bugle beads and three of seed beads (£16 or so). Popper studs were about £5
total; proper fastenings are going to cost me a lot more, some day.
So, for just the tunic and the surcoat, it’s cost me
about £40; if I’d had to buy my leather too, it would have been £100.
I wore the kit a couple of times, and, suddenly,
everyone I knew wanted one as well. I’ve made one in black velvet with
silver beads, one in blue velvet with gold beads, one in burgundy and gold
and one in green suedette with gold beading, and a darker surcoat.
It’s really worn in nicely now; the silk and the
leather have softened, and it’s my best kit.
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