Costume Critique: Lord of the Rings

This is by far my most favorite post. One, because it is about Lord of the Rings. And two, because the  costume designer Ngila Dickson also created the costumes for Xena: Warrior Princess.
Too. Much. Goodness.
To be honest, the costumes from Lord of the Rings speak for themselves. For the volume of costumes that were created, it is incredible to me that they were each so detailed and diverse. In an interview with Ngila, it was noted that with a crew of 40, over 19,000 costumes were made to meet the needs of stunt doubles, horse-riding doubles, and characters of different sizes. To help aid the illusion that hobbits were much smaller than man, costumes we created identically but on a much larger scale weave. For one of the Dark Riders, more than 50 metres of layered fabric was used!
I love researching designers and reading about ways in which they differentiate characters. For example, with Frodo, Ngila wanted him to have a more refined and gentleman feel, and so of all the hobbits, he was dressed in subtle velvets. She is so sneaky! But now that I know that, it makes such a difference!
As a trilogy, Lord of the Rings received more than 20 award nominations, won an Oscar in 2004 as well as an American Costume Designers Guild gong. I personally think it is safe to say that Lord of the Rings is the most epic trilogy ever created. The budget was approximately 280 million dollars, took 8 years to complete, and grossed nearly 3 billion dollars.