Dressed To Kill
Costume Designer Ngila Dickson determines what the well-dressed Warrior Princess - and her cohorts - are wearing.
The Official Magazine: Issue 01
The challenge was a formidable one: an exotic character like Xena required an equally memorable signature outfit, one designed to complement Lucy Lawless’ outstanding features. Essentially a leather and copper tunic, the original costume proved too uncomfortable for Lawless and a newer, more powerful-looking, less difficult to endure version was developed. “Poor Lucy,” offers Dickson. “It’s really difficult sometimes, especially with the extreme weather we have here in New Zealand. The new costume was really created for more comfort. It adheres to the original concept, with an emphasis on power… we all wanted something stronger.”
And what about color coordination? “It’s about giving that character as much strength as you can, without going to black, which is what everyone wanted to avoid,” explains Dickson. “So we stuck to a very dark brown. That led to the copper in the breastplates, metallic and warm, which brings out the blue in Lucy’s eyes.” A malleable metal, copper begins to move and alter slightly over the course of time, forcing Dickson and her assistants to periodically “check the breastplates and make sure they haven’t grown. Even so, we have to replace them every six months.”
Unlike Xena, Gabrielle’s garb has changed radically as the character has developed over the past two years. “We started her out in this terribly, terribly innocent costume,” explains Dickson, “and then we went to the second costume, which was a lot more workable. After the Amazon stage, we stripped it down again… and then we stripped it down again, just recently,” she adds with both a sign and a chuckle.
“But one of the great things about what we’re doing here is that nobody minds… within reason. We can run with where a character is physically going. That sort of creative design is encouraged, and it really keeps things interesting. We never sit back and say, ‘we’ve done enough.’ We’re always trying for the next exciting thing, something… different.”