Notes on the Lord of the Rings Exhibit at Te Papa, Wellington.

Saruman’s robe:

Outer robe is a canvas weave, sleeves lined in a cream damask. This fabric is also used as a trim on the outer robe, flat piping best describes it. Like seen on Vietnamese costume
The inner sleeves is a mid weight plain weave silk pin tucked into diamond The outer robe is lined, and the inner lining is free at the bottom and hemmed. The outer fabric is turned and blind stitched on the inside so no seam line is visible.

Third Age Elf, archer:

Like the elves wore into Helms Deep. The skirts were long leaf like and radiated from back of hips down and past the knee. Behind these leaves was 16mm black elastic. Probably to keep the leaves from flying all over the place when shooting the battle, but to also let them have some movement.
As mentioned before the scales are a very, very fine leather. Almost paper fine.

Boromir:

Wow, this was a spectacular example of sculpture. Certainly it was made from casts of Sean himself, but the detailing.. The colour and the hair was incredibly lifelike. Even stubble on his cheeks the redness of his knuckles sheen of sweat on his hand. If it wasn’t for me being able to see some seam lines on the inside of his fingers I’d have expected him to blink and wake up.

Fellowship cloaks:


Interesting the fabric is a lot browner and thicker than appears in the movie. Not that it actually looks bown, more of a brownich ash. There was a replica on a display downstairs, and I took a photo of it. However as it was behind glass and my camera had the flash going in the lighting condtions I had to press the lens right up to the wall. So I have a photo of the fabric rather than the cloak.
The cloak has side front seams for arm slits and the fabric changes direction there. I didn’t take much note of the side, so It may be that there is no side seam so the cut has to take that into account to achieve a flare.
The hood was lined in a terracotta colour that looked shot so terracotta and black I think.