At Närcon this weekend I talked a lot to a person about Padmé and Leia costumes, and I realized that simply due to the fact that I was around while the Padmé costumes were being analyzed and before social media, I have a lot of information about them, since I followed the progress of my fellow costumers. Today there is a lot of info social media, but it's usually hard to sort through social media posts to find clear and structured information on the costumes. Thankfully though a lot of the early research was done on forums and websites that are still around, if you know where to look, and this post is my way of trying to gather them in one place. So yes, if you want to make one of these costumes, but especially Padmé's, then I really recommend taking the time to read up on old internet post and on forums that were made before the advent of everyone posting videos and short clips of what they are doing.
First of all if you want to make a Padmé or Leia costume, the best way to start is over at the rebellegion. The Rebel Legion standards are lists of required elements if you want to become a member of the Rebel Legion, even if you don't want to become a member those lists are clear instructions on what parts the costumes are made up of. The Rebel Legion also has a forum, where persons making their version of the costumes have posted and are posting their progess, so you can see how other people has tackled a specific costume. Those forums can be found here: Rebel Legion Royalty/Senatorial forums
The most comprehensive website out there for Padmé, and Leia and generic jedi costumes, is Padawan's guide. Maggie, who ran the site, did and amazing job of collecting all available info on the costumes, and it is split between reference images, fanmakes and construcions tips for each costume. She basically summed up all the research that was done and made sure it was available in one place. That it is still alive, even if it hasn't been updated in many years, is a great gift from Maggie to all Star Wars costumers out there today.
A lot of what Maggie posted were summaries on what was discussed on the Jedi Council forums' Costuming and Props board. Back in the early 2000s this was the place where all Padmé costumers gathered and discussed their costumes, and posted their progress. All the Padmé Amidala costumes have their own tag in the forum - so that can be found here. Most of the threads are locked nowadays due to having been inactive for too long, but they are still there and are fill with information. Leia's costumes can be found here.
One costume that I get asked about is the iconic red gown from Episode one, also know among costumers as the "red invasion" costume. Back when blogs were a big thing on the internet Naergi from Germany did an extensive analysis, and the best recreation of the gown I have seen. If you are interested in doing that costume, you need to read her blog post. She also has other Star Wars costumes on her blog, so can be worth looking into for other characters as well.
With this piece of internet archaeology I hope I can help some people who wants to make their own Padmé Amidala costume, and don't know where to start. Compared to Leia's costumes, that were basically made for a low budget film, all of Padmé's costumes are complicated, either in cut and construction or in materials, or in both so making one will always involve a lot of work and usually quite a lot of money as well.
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