Over the next few weeks we are going to profile a few of the costumes used throughout the series. From the way they’re made to why they were designed the way they were. This week is Ellie’s Tribe 5 costume. Click any of the costume pictures for a larger view.
Mid way through Tribe 4 Ellie was found out about the bomb she’d planted for Ebony and the Techno’s whisked her away.
But early in Tribe 5 we see her reappear dazed and confused about who she is and who she knows. Java puts in place a cunning plan to plant a bomb in the Mall using one of their own – Ellie. But Jack saves the day and eventually Ellie’s memory is restored.
Ellie is pretty feisty and is always standing up for herself. In Tribe 5 she takes on a more subtle approach and seems to have calmed down a little from her former days.
This costume change signifies her new approach to life. She’s been through some bad times and is lucky that she came away with her life. She realises it’s time to think rationally and settle down a little and to stop ranting and raving.
There’s an old fashioned feel to this costume with the large floral patterns and the lacey top and below knee length skirt.
Her top is made of stretchy pink lacey material. At the cuffs and at the bottom hem the lace is doubled over to make to overlapping frills. Down the front of the top is a seam in a semi curve where the two front panels join. Around the neckline a thin greeny/gold piece of elastic edging has been sewn to form a v-neck. It is quite a tight fitting top and is transparent so a yellow fitted singlet is worn underneath.
Now how many of you thought that this criss cross piece across the front was sewn into the top? I did.
The criss cross halter is made of curtain hanging tape. The tape that is sewn on the back of the top of the curtain that you thread the hooks through to hang them.
It criss crosses at the front and goes over each shoulder and around the waist and is tied at the back with a piece of green ribbon – the same colour as the neckline edging of the top.
Threaded through the tape at the front are silver keyring loops with multi coloured round beads threaded on them.
Ellie’s skirt is an A-line skirt made of curtain material (hence the whole curtain theme). It is mainly light blue in colour with large floral arrangements on it in pinks, blues and yellows. Sewn across the front diagonally is another piece of curtain tape that extends half way around the back to the back seam. The skirt has one large pocket on the left side leg
The skirt is done up at the back with a 15cm metal zip.
Worn under the skirt is a blue petticoat made of blue netting. It is gathered at the bottom to give a ruffle to the hemline. This is worn a little longer than the skirt so as to add another texture and layer to the A-line of the skirt.
Ellie’s pink jacket is very cool in the way it’s been put together. It’s style is quite formal – it looks like the top half of a suit.
The whole jacket is made of a thin green linen. It’s doubled together so there is essentially two layers of green across the whole jacket. Sewn over the green linen is a pink net fabric with large detailed embroidered pink flowers on it.
Each sleeve is completely seperate from the jacket and is actually attached to the body of the jacket by pink ribbon which is threaded through eyelets on both the top of the sleeve and the shoulder of the main part of the jacket.
The eyelets don’t go the whole way around but come down half way each side and a bow is made with the ribbon where the eyelets end at the front.
This idea extends to the pockets which again are completely seperate from the main body of the jacket and are attached at each top corner by pink ribbon through three silver eyelets. They hang from the jacket.
The back of the jacket is pulled in at the lower middle of the back forming a small pleat. Each side of the pleat has four silver eyelets and the two sides are pulled together with pink ribbon.
The inside of the jacket is lined with a dark greeny/brown satin and the zip at the front is a full length brown plastic zip that goes up to the collar.
The necklace that Ellie wears is very large. The large leaf shape at the bottom is moulded and colour plastic that has leaf lines in gold paint. Small gold/brown beads are threaded along the bulk of the necklace interspersed with red and brown leaf shaped shell pieces.
Her bracelet is very nice and was also made by the wardrobe department. It gets a little hard to describe it in detail but basically it is fairly thick silver wire bent and moulded into swirly shapes. And threaded onto it with very fine wire are small green glass stones with one large oval green stone set in the middle.
To complete Ellie’s costume are her seventies styled denim sandals. The base of these shoes is rubber but Macrame weaving has been wound around them and glued. The upper is made of denim and the long laces are wound around the ankle before being tied.