| Aereon’s dress is described in the ‚Riddick insider‘ as being made from ‚crushed Swarowsky (not *my* typo – sic!) crystal‘.I will prove in this costume study that this description is wrong as it can be.
First, as you can perfectly see here, we have at least two layers in the costume:
First, an underdress, A-shaped, long, tight sleeves going almost to the fingertips; and above that, a sleeveless, floor-length vest with a cowl. As you can see here:
there are actually two of the A-shaped dresses. One is an overlay made of a netting with pearls at the knotting points, and the other dress below is opaque, white; probably silk. You can also see in this picture that the vest mentioned before has this beautiful, slightly transparent cowl with a slight sheen – I’d bet for this to be habotai silk, probably 8-10 momme. This shot…
…shows that the material of the vest is slightly crushed into false Fortuny pleats. This shot here:
perfectly shows the length of pearl netting over- and underdress in relation to each other. It’s also pretty obvious from this shot that those are indeed two separate dresses worn on top of each other. I suspect the netting overlay to having been especially made for this gown… I assume that the glittering pearls on the knots of the netting (or rather – around them) are, in fact, Swarovski crystal – not Crystal AB, though – beads. Helluva lotta work, insane amount of pearls, and that netting overdress must weight about 5-6 kilograms – but it’s gorgeous.
This is really a rather simple costume, if you are willing to do that netting stuff yourself, as I suspect that there’s no netting ready-made available that features those crystals. Perhaps, one day, when I’m *really* desperate, filthy rich to just afford the *pearls* for the gown and *really* bored, I’ll knot myself such a netting for the gown, as I just love it. Until then; here are more pictures of the original gown:
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I have watched Chronicles of Riddick on HD and the Aereon costume is absolutely amazing. But I don’t think the net overdress is pearls. There is too much sparkle. It really looks like crystals. I am interested in doing a cosplay of this and I am going crazy trying to decide pearls or crystals.
That is actually a translation problem; and I’m ashamed to admit that I caused it 🙁
The words „beads“ and „pearls“ are the same if translated to German – „Perlen“.
What you actually want to use aren’t „pearls“ as in „freshwater pearls“, but „Swarovski beads“, color Crystal, size 3-4mm.
Hope that helps – and sorry! 🙂
Thank you for the clarification. Your site is terrific with lots of information.
Thank you for this. I was just re-watching the movie now so I could get a better idea of the dress. I didn’t realize myself how intricate it was until I just caught the first scene. I was planning on making this dress as my first cosplay outfit (thinking the light color and material would make for a light dress in the heat of summer), but clearly it is above my level of experience… and a lot more expensive than I thought it might be…
Yeah, some costumes are completely underestimated in materials- and work terms… 😉