The Shieldmaiden Dress
Eowyn's Shieldmaiden dress consists of an overskirt of crinkle jaquard silk of the same color, a two peice chemise with lengthy sleeves, a vest, and a waist cincher. The top of the chemise (yoke shirt or bodice) is non-crinkle and has no pattern in it, unlike the overskirt which has a flowery pattern with alternating stripes. The yoke at the top also has between 5 and 7 pintucks that go all the way around the back. The sleeves Ibelieve are in a triangle shape with a long slit up the top which is then gathered up with a very small twisted rope/cord. It doesn't appear to attach itself to the other flat braid rope that goes around the upper arm sleeve. It might possibly be sewn to the outside or inside and thus snap or button etc. to the opposite side. The vest is probably made of some sort of brocade and is a dark brown. The vest has a zipper in the back and suede sleeve caps. The neckline and caps have golden embroidery (the caps have 3 rows). The neckline of the chemise also has gold embroidery. The waist cincher is quilted suede with one row of the same gold embroidery as the vest (a little bigger actually) and the rows at the bottom. The waist cincher has gold grommets in the back, a modesty panel and it is boned (by the fact that there is little bunching I think that is must be of spring steel boning). In the Return of The King she wears a different skirt. It is a lighter shade of brown than her vest and waist cincher. There's no certainty of what it is made out of yet.
Click on the thumbnails for larger views.
My Version of The Shieldmaiden Gown
The Body of the dress is made from the "bouqet" silk from Thai Silks, the cincher is faux suede fabric off e-bay, and the vest if a cotton floral brocade. All of the brown peices from the vest and cincher were hand dyed. Unfortunately the sleeve caps were dyed much later than the rest of the brown peices and the color did not turn out the same. I was so pressed for time that I had to use them anyway, I hope that sometime I can redo them with the correct tint of brown. The caps look much lighter in the pictures than they really are. The neckline of the vest sags a bit, it needs to be tighter (unfortunately the only way to fix that now is to add darts in the front. But that's what you get when you're pressed for time and don't have time to make mock-up's etc. The cincher was quilted with a sewing machine and I followed the corset directions on Koshka's site. I ordered spring steel boning 1/2inch from Grannd Companies. I bought satin braided soutache cord from an e-bay seller. The wide gold braided trim was purchased at a local fabric store but can also be purchased on-line at MJ Trim. The thin trim was bought at wal-mart a last minute decision. All of the trim was sewn on with gold metallic thread (took forever and a day). The grommets were purchased at Ben Franklin's with washers. As for the Faire, it was great and the following pictures (though poor in quality, my digital camera quit working) are from the faire. The first day was non-stop rain, the second was dry but the grounds were so muddy. The weather certainly wasn't doing much for my hair.... The other pictures are taken indoors closeup of the individual pieces.
Here are some great links for more in-depth analysis of the Shieldmaiden Dress:
Padawan's guide - Eowyn "Shieldmaiden" Gown
Koshka The Cat - Eowyn's Sheildmaiden Dress
Diana - Shieldmaiden Corset & kick'n Orc Outfit
Alleycatscratch.com - Eowyn's Sheild Maiden Outfit
Horse Feathers Studio - Eowyn's Shieldmaiden Gown
A well done Eowyn Shieldmaiden dress by "Aranel 13"
Sells a version of the Eowyn Shieldmaiden gown as well as other LOTR costumes
Sells a version of the Eowyn Shieldmaiden gown as well as other Female LOTR costumes
Sells a version of the Shieldmaiden gown as well as other LOTR costumes and many other costumes
Sells a version of the Eowyn Shieldmaiden gown
Some good links for fabrics and notions etc:
trim to make Eowyn's flat braid upper arm rope
Dying to get Eowyn's Sword? Ebay now has sellers of the sword of Eowyn reproductions. Just search with the keyword "eowyn sword". They're going for around 50 dollars. Note, these are NOT official liscenced swords. But United Cutlery is in the works on Eowyn's Sword as well as Theoden and Eomer's swords!