For Miranda, these costumes were the beginning of finding and understanding her character: "I turned up in New Zealand burdened by various personal problems and wondering how on earth I was ever going to become this emotionally complex, fearlessly determined character. Quite simply, Ngila transformed me. She spent a long time perfecting necklines and sleev lengths, every possible detail, to get it exactly right for me. It was really in the wardrobe and the swordfighting classes that I began to seem in a very physical sense, who this woman was."

Actor and designer quickly found themselves simpatico: "After a fitting," recalls Miranda, "I might go away and find myself thinking that we ought perhaps to go back to some fabric we had looked at earlier--only to turn up for my next fitting and find that Ngila had already done exactly that!"

It was in the choice of colors and materials that Eowyn's personality was differentiated from that of Arwen. "We decided," says Miranda, "that since Eowyn was human, you needed to feel as if you could reach out and touch her, unlike Arwen and Galandriel, who are Elves and therefore more illusive, more like a trick of the light."

Ngila's use of natural fabrics (wool, burlaps, velvets and brocades) suggested warmth, earthiness and royalty as well as a sense of imprisonment--a woman bound and trapped by duty.

"The funeral dress," says Miranda, "was fabulous. It carried its own personality -- dark and heavy, beautiful but stifling --and gave me bearing; made me stand tall but, at the same time, weighed me down with tradition as well as grief. In complet contrast, the white dress felt more like Eowyn's spirit: pure, cold, earty--but with this wildness inside.