By Monique
It’s J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday, and what better way to celebrate than to, as his son feels about the films, further desecrate his lifework with fashion and frivolity?
For a while, I’ve been trying to figure out how best to encapsulate Thranduil’s style in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Since I’ve been looking for some more upscale sleepwear, the idea of caftans (or kaftans) and robes somehow meshed with Thranduil and the outfit he wears when he’s mouthing off to Gandalf about helping (or, in Gandalf’s case, not helping) the dwarves.
Here it is in its moving form.
I do love how he really could care less about what Gandalf wants him to do. That’s how you have to be in life sometimes — do what you feel is best for you, no matter what people think.
In any case, I loved what Thranduil was wearing, and I thought it’d be easy to interpret into easy-to-wear and extravagant bed clothes.
A warning: These clothes that I’m about to show are expensive. Very expensive. You basically have to be Thranduil to afford these things, unless you just drop nearly $200 on each article of clothing like that. You can use these pieces of clothing as inspiration for your sleepwear shopping or, if you’re snazzy at sewing, you can certainly make your own Thranduil-esque robes and kaftans and whatever. But, if you want to splurge, the links are below with the pictures.
So, as you can see in the video, Thranduil is specifically wearing silvers and rusts. In the movie theater, I thought that he was wearing a full rust caftan under his silvery robe, but it would appear he’s wearing something similar to what he wore in The Desolation of Smaug, but less formal. Anyways, here’s what I found, working from my original memory of what he was wearing (which I actually like better than a more literal translation).
The best brand I’ve found that had the pieces I wanted is Natori. If you’re feeling splurgy and you’re going to buy these pieces, the first one to get is the actual kaftan. The Natori Shangri-La Lounge Caftan ($150) is a little lighter than the rust color Thranduil likes wearing, but it works.
You could stop there, or if you want to just go for a silver caftan, you could get the Natori Alexandra Zip Caftan ($180):
Or you could go the extra mile and get a robe. I’d definitely get a robe since I get cold. I’m not sure if that’s because of bad circulation, low iron, or both. But I’m very cold-blooded in the lizard sense.
The robe I’d get is the Natori Alexandra robe in silver ($180). It also comes in red.
Now, if you want to go the extra extra mile and get some luxurious slippers, I’ve found some at Soma Intimates. The Saachi velvet 1-inch slides ($152) are beautiful and opulent. I personally like the black ones with gold paisley detail, but there are also some off-white ones with a kind of peacock-ish gold detail.
In one video concerning Thranduil’s wardrobe (as embedded here), Thranduil wearing slingbacks were mentioned. So, if you want to really bring the Thranduil spirit to your sleep wardrobe, get these slingbacks would work great.
Of course, all of this stuff costs beaucoup money. But, you can certainly use this for your inspiration and to hopefully get you getting into the Thranduil-esque, luxurious mindset.
I feel like I could make a series of posts about living the luxurious life. What do you think? Give any suggestions below in the comments section!
Julian 