Romeo + Juliet Costumes

Hi,

I know this isn't Star Wars related but I thought some of you might be able to help me out. My girlfriend and I would like to go as Romeo and Juliet for halloween this year but we are having trouble going about it. To be specific we want to recreate the costumes Leonardo Dicaprio and Claire Danes wear in the fancy dress scene of Baz Lurhmann's 1996 production. Click here to see a picture of the costumes.

The problem we are having is that we can't find anything even remotely resembling Romeo's knight costume. I have looked at actually buying chainmail and armour pieces but it very quickly becomes expensive (The only knight costumes I've managed to find are very cheap looking and don't resemble the one worn by Romeo). I've even looked into making my own chainmail using cheap alternatives but I still wouldn't be able to make the shoulder plates and rest of the costume...

So after many hours of scouring the net I decided I should seek advice from some more experienced costumers. So if any of you have any ideas or advice I would be really glad to hear it. Thanks,

-Nick

 

I don't know about the chainmail, but for the amour pieces, you might want to try using fun foam. I've seen that shape of shoulder armour done very well. Directions, I think, can be found here: cheating armour from LOTR

they might have some info on chainmail, not too sure. But I've seen the fun foam work.

Good luck! Those costumes are in my top list of ones I want to make one day....

~Laura

 

This probably isn't as realistic as what you're looking for, but I've seen knight costumes that used black fabric with metallic thread woven in for the chainmail shirts. Or even a textured silver fabric might work. Look up comic book characters and see what patterns are used for them and look for fabric with a similar pattern, perhaps. It wouldn't be chainmail, but it might be better than nothing.

 

Hi!

This close to Halloween, your kinda outta luck.

Unless you know someone in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), or another group that gets into fighting in armor...good luck. Armor is EXPENSIVE.

Your best best would be to try and make the pieces out of foam, like it was mentioned earlier, and then paint them. For chain maile, a heavy knit shirt, sprayed black and silver will work. That is what they do for the Ga'ould costumes in Stargate. Look on their sites, and they can tell you how to make one that looks like chain mail.

If you had time, there is another site, that makes armor from thin sheets of plastic...and they LOOK GOOD. But its alot of work.

This is it:


Armormaking for the Fiberglass Phobic
http://amethyst-angel.com/armormaking.html



Good luck!