Why create a Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (and Xena) costume study? Well I'm not afraid to admit I'm a big fan... of Hercules mostly, although I did watch Xena since the universe had so many crossovers, you had to watch both to understand all the plots.
Anyway, being a historical costumer myself, I always wondered how I would dress myself if I were to wander into the universe as a character. Let's say I were to go to a Hercules/Xena convention (which I haven't yet... how know what the future my hold...), it's not at all satisfying for me to just dress up as an existing character, like Callisto, or Aphrodite. I'd rather create something original, from my own design, but would fit naturally in the established Hercules/Xena world... but remains original to my own design and intention.
Barbara Darragh, Jane Holland and Nigila Dickson did some fascinating work over the years. Obviously the costumes are far from historically accurate, and sometimes, just plain strange. However, on the whole - and i say this as an observer of 'historical recreations' in hollywood - they managed to create visual palettes that we the audience quickly accepted as 'natural' and looked past the authenticity, my favourite of course being their use of textures to visually fill out a character in period garb.
While rolling the images over in my head the other day after digging out my DVDs for pure nostalgia's sake, I became struck with the idea of catalouging the entire series, character by character. Is it an insane mission? Perhaps... Will I finish? Possibly... Will it provide useful for anyone else? Hopefully... Am I undertaking an absurd assignment? Absolutely... but at least it should be fun!!
