Frocks and elves Rings style

By FIONA HAWTIN

Because there are only a handful of female characters in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Oscar nominated costume designer relished the chance to create some dresses.

"It was like a breath of fresh air," says Dickson, when she finally got started on some dresses after an intense period kitting out elves.

Arwen: played by Liv Tyler

The idea: Again, Dickson opted for a medieval look. Arwen, the elf princess, is royal and falls in love with a mortal. Her costumes had to be feminine, simple, rich and other-worldly to bring out the character's extraordinary qualities. "It was a fluke. We were working with a piece of velvet and it came back from the dye-house this unbelievable colour. It was just sublime. It was the old 'Eureka, we've got it'. Aside from the colour, the emphasis would be created around the luxurious drape of silk velvet."

The construction: The midnight blue silk velvet dress is trimmed with antiqued embroidery Dickson stumbled upon in London. Not content with the old feel it already had, she aged it further and used it around the neckline and on the upper part of the sleeve to give the look richness. The deep rose sleeves took 4.5m of silk velvet cut into a circular shape. At 1.8m, Tyler is tall enough to take on such a lot of fabric.

"It weighs a tonne, but she has such beautiful shoulders that if you hang something from them, she doesn't feel the weight and what you get is all silk velvet. The whole thing's about the hanging."

The reality: To keep the hands visible, hands had to be clasped at all times, otherwise the sleeve would rest at the ankle. Couple that with the excess of dress trailing on the ground and the weight of it, this is one of those hard-to-move-in, stay-put outfits, the sort you'd receive folk in during the course of royal duties. Arwen wouldn't want to have to make a fast getaway on horseback in it. On film, the effect of Tyler in the rich, coloured velvet is incredible, says Dickson. "This is actually my favourite dress." Tyler also loved it.

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Eowyn: played by Miranda Otto

The idea: Not only is Eowyn the only female human in the trilogy, she has a royal background. Her costumes needed to be regal.

"But she's a feisty young thing," says Dickson. "She has this desire to fight alongside the men, so the idea was to have this sense of her fighting in her underwear." She means a medieval version of underwear, not the modern bra and briefs.

The construction: This ensemble is a pretty accurate portrayal of medieval style, give or take the odd liberty Dickson took. The star of this cream silk dress with a full skirt is the sleeve.

Puffed at the shoulder, the mid-calf length sleeve is then gathered underneath before finally falling open in a version of a medieval one. The feeling is that of motion and practicality, necessary because Eowyn is all-action. She's also given to fighting, hence the sword as an accessory. To complete the underwear then, a brown leather bodice with gold embroidery is worn over the top.

The reality: "It came together in the easiest possible way. It was one of those marriages of design and character in several, easy fittings. It's fantastic, a dream."

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