Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Characters: Wealthy Hobbits of the Late Third Age

A black, white, and dark blue striped header image with the text Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Characters: Wealthy Hobbits of the Late Third Age

During the early 19^th century, also known as the Regency era in Great Britain, clothing mimicked contemporary events in Europe, including revolutions and building empires. People were inspired by similar events in classical history such as Athenian democracy and the Roman Empire. Northwestern European scholars had long appropriated the history of the Mediterranean as their own past, but this was the first time the mythology had gone mainstream. The beginning of print culture, or the mass production of written documents including books, allowed the noble and merchant classes to own their own copies of The Odyssey and The Iliad, albeit with varying accuracy in translation, while the display of marble statues at public institutions like our old friend the British Museum allowed the general public to see how their favorite heroes may have looked. This interest in the ancient world continues today, as the so-called Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon have been on display in the museum since 1817. Thomas Bruce, 7^th Earl of Elgin ordered them removed between 1801 and 1812 without the consent of the local government, and the museum has shown no intention to return these stolen artifacts.

My main resource for this essay is the Fashion History Timeline, which last appeared in “Shire Hobbits of the Fourth Age”. I concentrate on a time period seventy to ninety years earlier than that essay, and the difference in costume should be obvious. One difficult trick for my illustrations will be showing the difference between the 1800s-1810s era costuming during “The Long-Expected Party” and the seventeen-year time skip to 1820s-1830s costuming during “The Shadow of the Past” and subsequent chapters. Today’s essay will focus on the earlier period, while an upcoming essay on the accessories of elite young men will cover the later period.

Where Is Their Hair?

While popular during the 18^th century, as recognized by anyone familiar with the Georgian era, long hair fell out of fashion by the end of the century. Hastening its demise in the United Kingdom was the Duty on Hair Powder Act 1795 passed by King George III and requiring £1.1.0d (One pound, one shilling, zero pence) per year from all hair-powder users, equivalent to roughly £65 or $88 in 2025. The tax made about £200,000, equivalent to £12.9 million or $17.5 million. To comply with the Act, the head of the household would pay the fees and pick up certificates for each member of the household. The demise of hair-powder may have depended more with the hassle of keeping the certificates up to date than the relatively low fee.

In the young United States, wearing a “queue, club, or pigtail” — meaning a skinny braid, a manbun at the nape of the neck, or a single modern pigtail — fell out of popularity for men. Hastening the demise of this hairstyle was a military officer, Major General James Wilkinson, who banned long hair in 1801, a decision that caused many soldiers to resign or desert. Wilkinson’s other exploits included temporarily resigning from the Army after suspected mismanagement of funds, involvement in an alleged plot to form a new country using territory owned by the United States, and dying in Mexico while trying to buy land in Texas.

The French Revolution across the water ushered in an era of hair cutting. Long hair was too reminiscent of the abandoned aristocracy; the people were filled with the spirit of Republicanism and needed no king, as they ruled themselves. Among the most “extreme” hairstyles of the day was the Titus cut or coiffure à la Titus. Both men and women cropped their hair short and messily curled it. The name came from the character of Titus played by French actor François-Joseph Talma in the play Brutus written by radical thinker Voltaire. While the play premiered in 1730, the version with the famous haircut was produced in 1791. The play was not a happy one, as young Titus betrayed his father Brutus and the Romans to help his Etruscan girlfriend Tullie and then was executed by his father for his treason.

For hair inspiration, I studied two portraits portraying women of similar ages but wearing different hairstyles. The Portrait of Harriet Leonard Bull was likely painted around 1810 by Arthur William Devis, an English artist best known for his portraits and historical scenes, especially those depicting Navy officer Horatio Nelson. Unlike the short hair of the aggressive naval hero, the young Englishwoman tied up her wavy hair in a bun and curled a soft fringe to frame her face. This hair style was inspired by ancient statues of Greco-Roman goddesses.

Brown hair with curly fringe and a bun tied up with a green bow

Short brown hair with long curls around the face

The Portrait of Suzanne Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau was painted by French artist Jacques-Louis David in 1799. David preferred scenes from mythology and history to portraiture, but as a revolutionary who allied with Maximilien Robespierre and later Napoleon Bonaparte, he was the perfect choice for this portrait. The subject of the painting was a young revolutionary whose father, the radical noble Michel Le Peletier, was assassinated when she was only eleven years old. She wore her hair short and curly in the Titus cut like many other politically active young people of her time.

The Great Male Renunciation

I first learned about the Great Male Renunciation and its leader, London-based fashionista George Bryan “Beau” Brummell, when listening to the podcast Articles of Interest, which I reviewed in February, back when the podcast was a mini-series within the much larger design podcast, 99 Percent Invisible. The episode “Suits” described how Brummell, who lived from 1778 to 1840, changed the way Europeans thought about clothing. As succinctly put by fashion historian Ian Kelly, Brummell led the charge ridding European men’s fashion of “lace and silk and feathers and wigs and makeup and color”. All of these accessories were considered unisex before Brummell, whose preferred outfit was skin-tight tan pants without underwear and a tailored navy blue jacket, a precursor to business casual along with jeggings. Brummell’s many followers called themselves “dandies” and tried to attract women by wearing the exact same outfit, like a military unit of young single men. Similar to French revolutionaries cutting their hair to reject the monarchy and mimic Greco-Roman styles, British revolutionaries enjoyed looking naked on the bottom just like ancient statues along with wearing the dull colors of American patriots who had recently gained independence from Great Britain. Much like modern day young men, the dandies did not seem to understand what actually attracted women.

A green suit jacket with a long tail and breeches with golden buttons plus a green bow at the knee

Green suitcoat, yellow waistcoat, white cravat, and green breeches with a green bow at the knees

Same outfit as previously described. The pudgy belly is most noticeable in this view.

Greek Clothes, Sort Of

Women of the early 19^th century were also inspired by Greco-Roman statuary except they preferred to mimic the flowing chiton garments rather than the nudes. I last describe the chiton in “Races: Men, Part 1” while discussing the clothing of Númenóreans, ancestors to Dúnedain who colonized Middle-earth. While hobbits seemed not to have as much interest in the past as people of the Regency period, the tales of Bilbo canonically sparked an interest in many young Tooks. Since the extended family ruled the Shire, their fashion sense would have influenced the clothing of less powerful hobbits. Back to the Real World, the neoclassical dresses of the early 19^th century had a few distinguishing features. The neckline tended to be low and square, while the waistline was high and sat just under the bust. While dresses of the recent past had been propped up by petticoats, these dresses had no volume. Much like the men, women appeared to abandon their underwear for a more natural look, although they likely wore a slender petticoat under their dress. Since the Industrial Revolution allowed patterned cloth to be manufactured at a lower cost, printed cotton was a trendy alternative to the more expensive all-white dresses.

Golden-yellow dress with a square neckline, long sleeves, and pleats on the skirt along with a large green bow at the waist

Golden-yellow dress with a pressed front and long sleeves plus a narrow green ribbon belt at the waist

Both pressed front and pleated back are visible, along with the thin green belt and large bow

What about the Kids?

Just like children today, early 19^th century children wore different outfits depending on their age. Babies and toddlers of all ages wore dresses or frocks for ease of dressing and cleaning them. Around age four, little girls began wearing ankle-length dresses like their mothers. Interestingly, this outfit for grown women had been considered children’s clothing only a few decades earlier. Little boys were “breeched” at this time and began wearing a skeleton suit, something like an uncomfortable onesie with tons of buttons instead of zippers. English author Charles Dickens wore one as a kid and thought they were awful, describing them in Sketches by Boz as “those straight blue cloth cases in which small boys used to be confined”. By age fifteen, boys wore adult clothing. Much like with women’s wear, men’s wear used designs originally made for boys, especially the tight trousers. I cannot imagine hobbits wearing anything uncomfortable, so in my illustrations, little hobbit-boys will wear the same outfits as their fathers.

Father Drogo wears a blue three-piece suit with a matching top hat. He is short, tanned, and heavy-set with a cleft on his wide chin and bright, golden eyes. Mother Primula wears a blue dress and matching bonnet. She is tall, fair, and blue-eyed. Son Frodo is about shoulder height to his parents. He wears a blue suit like his father but without a hat. He looks like his mother except for the cleft on his chin and golden eyes.

Saradoc faces away and wears a blue suit. Paladin and Pippin stand at center facing forward and wear green suits. Pippin is the height of Paladin's waist. Ferumbras stands three-quarters and wears a gold and purple suit.

The three hobbit-lasses stand in a square. The Tooks sisters wear green dresses with bonnets while Ella wears a yellow dress with a bonnet

You Absolutely Must Wear a Hat

I have many pet peeves about how costumes are created by the people of Hollywood, one of them being the absence of headgear. Until recently, people wore hats outside with few exceptions. Being bareheaded was like being barefoot today: not exactly naked, but certainly a social faux pas. I suppose this is not a great analogy for hobbits. Both men and women in Europe wore hats of various styles from simple caps to trendy top hats to culturally appropriated turbans.

A yellow, two-pointed hat with a green cockade.

Yellow felt with a green bow on the band

I have decided to focus on three styles of hats: bicornes, top hats, and bonnets. I had previously described bicornes in “Characters: Bilbo & Frodo Baggins”, as these first rose to popularity during the mid- to late 18^th century. Napoleon Bonaparte was a big fan of the bicorne worn side-to-side, which maintained the popularity of the hat during his reigns. The ancestors of top hats appeared in the early 19^th century but did not yet have the standardized form developed during the Victorian era. Brims varied in size from narrow to wide. Since hobbits have small heads, albeit with round faces, the brim would look extra wide on them. For women, bonnets were a popular choice of headgear, the commonest in the late 18^th through mid-19^th century being the poke bonnet. The bonnet hid the wearer’s face from the back and side, along with impairing peripheral vision, much like blinders on a horse. The etymology of the term is unclear, possibly from the brim poking far past the face.

The long brim extends far past the under-chin ribbon

Another demonstration of the brim extending far past the chin ribbon

Round fabric on the back to hold the wearer's hair

Conclusion

While the clothing of hobbits should be recognizable as inspired by the first two decades of the 19^th century, their style departs significantly from that of the Real World in two ways. First, the color palettes were different. While British men preferred tan and navy blue and British women preferred white and pastels, hobbits wore “chiefly green and yellow” (The Hobbit, 2; The Fellowship of the Ring, 2) according to Bilbo, perhaps with a few colorful accents to denote status. I have designed the hobbit outfits to fit this color palette, although Stoors wear blue-green to show their love of the River Brandywine, while the Thain has purple accents to denote his royal status. The hobbit Industrial Revolution seemed more focused on food and pipe-weed production than clothing, so they do not have printed patterns. Second, the silhouettes of hobbits were different from people of the Real World. British men wore tight-fitting pants and coats while British women had high-waisted dresses over their generally slender bodies. Hobbits tended to be pudgy, and any tightness in their clothing was more likely from growing wider but not taller instead of a fashion choice. The dresses of hobbit-lasses would still have a high waist.

Naturally curly hobbit hair was the perfect fit for a neoclassical bun or a Titus cut. Since hobbits had no Titus in their history, I imagine their haircut might be named for a different cultural hero, maybe a Blanco, Bullroarer, or Bucca cut. I created two variations of the Titus cut: a longer version for women or children who refuse haircuts, and a shorter version for men or children with a fresh haircut. This difference is most evident in my illustration of little Frodo, whose adventurous parents may not have bothered to frequently cut his hair, versus my illustration of little Pippin, who as a future Thain of the Shire must look his best for the Long-Expected Party. Teen Frodo also sports the same haircut, since he was in the custody of his no-nonsense uncle Rory Brandybuck after the deaths of his parents, while tween-turned-adult Frodo has the same older, late 18^th century hairdo as Bilbo. I hope this gives the impression of Frodo being a person out of time, more comfortable with the romanticized past than a present where he is widely disliked.

Finally, I took this opportunity to make a yearbook style set of portraits for a handful of the 144 guests of the Long-Expected Party. I focused on characters mentioned by name during the party or the next day’s gift-giving session along with their immediate families. Two characters did not have names assigned to them in the original text, so I invented potential names based on the Frankish and Gothic naming scheme used by Tolkien in his “translation”. See if you can spot whose names were invented!