designer and seamstress
Rachel Murphy

Completed: August 2005

This has been a very special dress to make.  I have wanted for some time to have the right use for a particularly stunning silk called “Arizona Sunset,” whose color—a flaming orange-red when turned one way, purple the other—is a great match for Nikki Hon, a beautiful dancer with the Comerford School, Oregon.

The theme of this original dress design was inspired by a quote from the mythology of J.R.R. Tolkien, from the fifth chapter (“The Window on the West”) of Book IV of The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.  Frodo and Sam, having been led by Faramir and company—blindfolded—through the woods of Ithilien (“Land of the Moon”), are finally able to uncover their eyes to a glorious sight:

“They stood on a wet floor of polished stone, the doorstep, as it were, of a rough-hewn gate of rock opening dark behind them.  But in front a thin veil of water was hung, so near that Frodo could have put an outstretched arm into it.  It faced westward.  The level shafts of the setting sun behind beat upon it, and the red light was broken into many flickering beams of ever-changing colour.  It was as if they stood at the window of some elven-tower, curtained with threaded jewels of silver and gold, and ruby, sapphire and amethyst, all kindled with an unconsuming fire.”

The Elvish script surrounding the skirt rim is in Sindarin, or Gray-Elven.  (It is interesting to note that annun, depending on its accent mark, may mean either “sunset,” or “west”):

Pheriain, alae!  Hi na Henneth Annûn, bain lanthir o Ithilien.

“Halflings, behold!  This is the Window of the Sunset, fair waterfall of Ithilien.”

The main fabric is Arizona Sunset dupioni silk, with a white “Falling Rain” netting behind the appliqué.  The appliqué is a variety of metallic fabrics in the colors of Tolkien’s description—“silver and gold, and ruby, sapphire and amethyst”—with the satin-stitching in metallic threads of the same colors.  All of the satin-stitch embroidery—including the Elvish script—is freehand machine work.  The dress is accented with Swarovski (genuine Austrian) crystals in shades of Hyacinth, Sun, Siam, and clear Crystal (all with an “Aurora Borealis” shine), and Fire Opal.