Elven hair styles...for the Tolkienites

[SwordWomanRiona]

*gasp* This is so lovely!! The vine with flowers is a dream; I love the costume too!

The costume and braid are perfect! I really love the pop of the gold circlet too. So inspiring

Thank you both !

Ok I did it. I dug up an old elven dark elf photo from me back in 2014. (I hung out around tbl/classic length for a long time before pushing on to my current knee length, it's weird to see a trimmed u hemline and no fairtale. Not to mention the bangs which are now grown out to tbl).

No fancy braids or anything but I was proud of my ears which I made myself from masking tape and makeup.

Lovely! And the ears look amazing ! Many times at Tolkien cons instead of wearing prosthetic ears we used to wear just pointy tips made with folded nude fabric tape, and it really looked the part in pics, surprisingly!

[ebillan]

All of these photos are awesome!! I'm a huge Tolkien geek and currently have my hair done in a Legolas-esque style - braids at each side, and one down the back. I'm always looking for new elven ways to style my hair!

[Death-Within-Me]

I joined this site BECAUSE I'm a Tolkien geek. It's funny but it makes sense.

[SwordWomanRiona]

I joined this site BECAUSE I'm a Tolkien geek. It's funny but it makes sense.

It makes total sense ! Here's for more Elven styles!

[-Aithne-]

Happy to enable xD!
Sideless surcoats were worn throughout the 14th-15th centuries as well, so more enabling from my part xD! I really love surcoats too I've got a late 14th Century cottehardie and a late 15th Century V-neck houppelande, and I would go on because I adore Medieval clothes

There's a thread about historical hairstyles, that would probably work well for Medieval styles, if I remember correctly I posted about one of mine there a while ago When wearing the elaborate headdresses of the 15th Century the material I've read says that they probably wore their hair in a high bun, braided or unbraided. Sometimes you can see tiny braids looped around the ears as a throwback to the coiled braids of the 14th Century, so this was my go at it for my Burgundian gown (linking instead of adding the pic because that would be thread hijacking lol xD).

It looks like the Queen Victoria hairstyle with the bun higher and a new braid cross at the top of the ears! (I could never find a name for it...but it's the one she wears in the portrait of her in the white gown with the blue sash by Franz Javier Winterhalter....isn't the comb in her hair divine?!) Braids in front of ears should make a come-back soon, after all fashion is supposed to go in circles and it's been quite a while. I love your V-neck houppelande! The train is gorgeous and the fur-ish trim really makes it look fancy Your hat making, connical hennin making, skills are amazing! I wonder if the bun helped hold the hat on...

I like to wear medieval-other-country-and-time-period clothes at home I stopped for a while because life, but I started again because of the pandemic. It's so much more fun to wear fancy things at home...I think I need to try Hanfu like Tuanyiji <-you look like a fairy princess! Oh, I think I may have a thread-jacking type of personality...sigh.

Ok I did it. I dug up an old elven dark elf photo from me back in 2014. (I hung out around tbl/classic length for a long time before pushing on to my current knee length, it's weird to see a trimmed u hemline and no fairtale. Not to mention the bangs which are now grown out to tbl).

No fancy braids or anything but I was proud of my ears which I made myself from masking tape and makeup.

Wow! Your ears are really masking tape? They look so good! Really amazing You are so pretty, just like Betty Page! I think she was pretty...though I'm not sure she was a real person or a composite drawing/character. I've just reached knee, too! Whee!

[COLOR="#800080"]Another Elven style from 2018, Lúthien Tinúviel edition! A braided paranda ponytail with side braids and a front pompadour, decorated with leaf ribbon and flowers, and a circlet in some cases as well. I quite like how this one turned out

I love the blue outfit and the leaves in your hair I hope to make a colored paranda some day. #parandagoals XD

[Demonica]

Wow, that hair, that lacy costume, those ears, and that expression. It looks like a very naughty elf just caught red-handed or planning her next mischiefs lol. 100/100.
And your bangs back then were so thick, now that they’re tbl, are you sure you are just ii? You look at least ii/iii to me.

Thank You!! I was feeling quite mischievous in the costume. You are right I am a ii close to iii. I still only consider myself a ii because most of my length thins out. My hair in the photo is thicker than it is now. Now I am older and lost some thickness plus it is longer so it *appears* even thinner especially with the oils I add to protect it. Back then it would be dry and puffy (looking volumous, but I wasn't careful with it.)

Thank you both !



Lovely! And the ears look amazing ! Many times at Tolkien cons instead of wearing prosthetic ears we used to wear just pointy tips made with folded nude fabric tape, and it really looked the part in pics, surprisingly!

That is so awesome! I fabric tape idea is even better than masking tape I think. For the texture. I'll try that next time I make tape ears.

All of these photos are awesome!! I'm a huge Tolkien geek and currently have my hair done in a Legolas-esque style - braids at each side, and one down the back. I'm always looking for new elven ways to style my hair!

I'd love to see this!

It looks like the Queen Victoria hairstyle with the bun higher and a new braid cross at the top of the ears! (I could never find a name for it...but it's the one she wears in the portrait of her in the white gown with the blue sash by Franz Javier Winterhalter....isn't the comb in her hair divine?!) Braids in front of ears should make a come-back soon, after all fashion is supposed to go in circles and it's been quite a while. I love your V-neck houppelande! The train is gorgeous and the fur-ish trim really makes it look fancy Your hat making, connical hennin making, skills are amazing! I wonder if the bun helped hold the hat on...

I like to wear medieval-other-country-and-time-period clothes at home I stopped for a while because life, but I started again because of the pandemic. It's so much more fun to wear fancy things at home...I think I need to try Hanfu like Tuanyiji <-you look like a fairy princess! Oh, I think I may have a thread-jacking type of personality...sigh.


Wow! Your ears are really masking tape? They look so good! Really amazing You are so pretty, just like Betty Page! I think she was pretty...though I'm not sure she was a real person or a composite drawing/character. I've just reached knee, too! Whee!


I love the blue outfit and the leaves in your hair I hope to make a colored paranda some day. #parandagoals XD

Thank you thank you! Yes they were quite easy to make, there are YouTube tutorials. And yes she is a real person who I also think is beautiful so that's a huge compliment! I agree for braid fashion. I think of Kitara from Avatar too. She has great ear loop braids!
Oh and congrats on knee!!

[-Aithne-]

Thank You!! I was feeling quite mischievous in the costume. You are right I am a ii close to iii. I still only consider myself a ii because most of my length thins out. My hair in the photo is thicker than it is now. Now I am older and lost some thickness plus it is longer so it *appears* even thinner especially with the oils I add to protect it. Back then it would be dry and puffy (looking volumous, but I wasn't careful with it.)


That is so awesome! I fabric tape idea is even better than masking tape I think. For the texture. I'll try that next time I make tape ears.


I'd love to see this!



Thank you thank you! Yes they were quite easy to make, there are YouTube tutorials. And yes she is a real person who I also think is beautiful so that's a huge compliment! I agree for braid fashion. I think of Kitara from Avatar too. She has great ear loop braids!
Oh and congrats on knee!!

She is real! How cool And thank you for the congrats

[SwordWomanRiona]

It looks like the Queen Victoria hairstyle with the bun higher and a new braid cross at the top of the ears! (I could never find a name for it...but it's the one she wears in the portrait of her in the white gown with the blue sash by Franz Javier Winterhalter....isn't the comb in her hair divine?!) Braids in front of ears should make a come-back soon, after all fashion is supposed to go in circles and it's been quite a while. I love your V-neck houppelande! The train is gorgeous and the fur-ish trim really makes it look fancy Your hat making, connical hennin making, skills are amazing! I wonder if the bun helped hold the hat on...

I like to wear medieval-other-country-and-time-period clothes at home I stopped for a while because life, but I started again because of the pandemic. It's so much more fun to wear fancy things at home...I think I need to try Hanfu like Tuanyiji <-you look like a fairy princess! Oh, I think I may have a thread-jacking type of personality...sigh.

I love the blue outfit and the leaves in your hair I hope to make a colored paranda some day. #parandagoals XD

True, the styles are pretty similar, looped braids were all the rage in the 14th Century, and they sure came back in Victorian times xD! I don't know if this kind of style I chose for my 15th Century reenactment was worn often, we generally have to guess from a handful of illuminations and sculptures where small braids or pieces of hair such as these can be seen (like here), seeing as hair was so often completely hidden by the headdresses because of religious gendered modesty mindsets :S I remember reading that high buns, braided or not, would often be worn under the hennins, and I wanted to show a bit of hair because I'm personally miffed by the concept of gendered modesty mindsets, so I chose the little accent braids, which are surely a call back to the looped braids of the 14th Century.

Thanks, I love this houppelande! Burgundian fashion is so dramatic and over the top, and I just love the V-neck silhouette and the kilometric trains. The fur is synthetic faux-fur, of course! Not the most comfortable outfit to walk around in, but it's a 'go big or go home' experience that I personally love (and I ended up literally climbing up a castle with metres of velvet wrapped around my arms, plus wearing the underkirtle and the hennin and a cloak, so I guess this court outfit passed the test of 'you can actually climb to a castle in it if needs be' ).

I really enjoyed making the hennin, thanks ! I'm not sure if the high bun helped the hennin stay in place, most of that was achieved thanks to the velvet strips below and above the hat, tying it in place. You do need to wear a high bun so that the hat fits around your head well, I guess that's a factor why it's believed that most women wore some kind of high bun underneath these headdresses.

Wearing fancy things at home is definitely something I can get behind, although I generally kind of don't I do cosplay and so historical reenactment at home, though, especially since the pandemic started. So doing a shoot is a nice excuse to wear velvet trains xD

And yay, parandas are great, enabling you to make one (or two, or more xD). I wear them nearly every time I'm wearing a braid. I used to wear ribbons more often before that, but lately they're more for cosplay, like the leaf ribbons.

That is so awesome! I fabric tape idea is even better than masking tape I think. For the texture. I'll try that next time I make tape ears.

I hadn't thought of the possibility before a fellow Tolkienite told me about fabric tape Elven ear tips at a convention, but they really work like a dream, and are very quick to create with a little bit of practice ! We literally used to cut a strip of fabric tape in our skin colour, and fold one end of it to create the point, careful so that the other end doesn't fold so that we can tape it to the ear. I do need to get a pair of latex ears to improve the pair I currently have, but I end up using this way more than the full ears (lately, it's Photoshop, but at conventions, I mean xD).

Close up you can see it's tape, but at a small distance they already look great, and with a little bit of Photoshop the juncture can be easily hidden :

[SwordWomanRiona]

Back in 2015, I did a professional Elven shoot, featuring my OC Rivendell ranger with the hairstyle that I usually wear with this costume, a braided high ponytail with beribonned side braids (with leaf ribbon), and a paranda (and heatless curls on the ends). So some throwback pics I hadn't posted yet, also cross-posted from the 'Show me your hair pics' thread: