This was my entry in the 2012 Lotro Fashion Contest for the category “Fashion in Motion”. Outfits in this category were to be taken while on horseback. I chose to color coordinate my outfit to the Prized Rivendell Steed you can get by becoming Kindred with the Elves of Rivendell.

This was actually an outfit I had been working on way before the contest was announced. I had wanted to make an outfit to show off the Cloak of the Peace-Keeper. I think this is such a lovely cloak but because of it’s coloring and size it’s not attractive paired with most outfits.

I felt the green version Ceremonial Dress worked really well with the cloak. They both have matching green and yellow accents. Devonna, being a Hobbit, was the ideal model to show off this outfit. I think the short cloak works well with Hobbits.

Head: Fancy Plumed Hat, dyed Turquoise (Lotro Store)
Chest: (Green) Ceremonial Dress (Summer Festival Reward)
Back: Cloak of the Peace-Keeper (Collector’s Edition – many players got it when the EU/US servers merged)
Steed: Prized Rivendell Pony (Kindred standing with Elves of Rivendell)

During Fashion week you can receive Free White Dye at the Lotro Store by using the coupon code LOTROSTYLIST. During this week long event I will be featuring White themed outfits on my blog.

In Lotro, white is not the easiest color to work with, if you are looking for a pure white outfit that is. Not many items dye a pure white color. The outfit tends to look grey or yellowish instead of white. If your character is female you have it a little bit easier with all the pretty white dresses that are available to you, but that doesn’t help males much.

The Annuminas robe has areas on it that dye a pure white color and looks equally good on male and female characters. In my opinion, this robe is the most unique and lovely robe in the game.

It used to be much more difficult to acquire this robe. You needed to run the Annuminas instances which were some of the most difficult in the game and nearly impossible to find a group for. However, recent changes now allow you to purchase this robe, as well as all the Annuminas armours, at any skirmish camp for medallions and marks. According to the Bullroarer (test server) patch notes, in the near future all the Annuminas armour will be placed in the Lotro Store making them even easier to get.

Head: Circlet of Men (Anniversary Gift-Box)
Chest: Ceremonial Robe of the Seven Stars, dyed White
Feet: Barrow-Scouts Boots, dyed Sienna (Great Barrow medium armour)
Back: Twilight Cloak, dyed White (Lotro Store)

From February 9th to the 16th it’s Fashion Week in Lotro. To celebrate there will be various community and in-game events going on including a Fashion Contest that Lotro Fashion, Cosmetic Lotro and myself have been asked to help judge.

The Fashion Contest has four categories for you to enter in:

• Fashion In Motion: Entries in this category should be taken while on horseback! Color coordinate with your horse and ride through Middle-earth in style! The winner of this category will receive the title of, “Galloping Beauty 2012” (female) or “Dashing Stallion 2012” (male) on the LOTRO Forums.
• Professionally Minded: Look your best while you’re on the job! This category is for the many beautiful outfits that are themed to either your class or your crafting profession. The winner of this category will receive the title of “Professionally Dressed 2012” on the LOTRO Forums.
• Formal Extravagance: Not every ensemble needs to be created with armor. This category is for those luxurious clothing combinations that are more suited for a party under the light of the moon. The winner of this category will receive the title “Extravagant in Starlight 2012” on the LOTRO Forums.
• Most Fashionable Kinship: Dress for success as a group and send in your kinship photos! The winner of this category will be known as “Kinship Fashion Photographer 2012” on the LOTRO Forums.

The staff at Turbine will be choosing the winners of these categories.

This contest also features two special community awards; one handed out by the team of fashionistas (fashion blogs), and the other by the community itself.

• Fashionista’s Choice: This category will be voted on by members of our Fashion Blogging community! Devonna of LOTRO Stylist, Freyjuska of LOTRO Fashion, and Hymne of Cosmetic LOTRO will form our panel of fashionistas! The winner of this category will receive the title “Fashionista’s Choice 2012” on the LOTRO Forums.
• Fan Favorite: After the Turbine Community Team collects all screenshots, we’ll whittle down the pack to the best of the best. At that time, we’ll create a forum poll and let you, the community, choose your favorite! The winner of this category will receive the title “Fashion Fan Favorite 2012” on the LOTRO Forums.

The Fashionista’s Choice and Fan Favorite awards are “meta” categories. No matter which of the four categories you choose to enter, every picture that’s submitted will be eligible for these overarching categories.

To help you get started looking your best for Fashion Week, Turbine is giving away free dye color at each of the three fashionista’s blogs. So be sure to visit them to find a coupon for free dye color. All coupons will be active between 2/9 and 2/16.

If you would like Free White Dye (one free dye per customer) all you have to do is

• visit the Lotro Store and find White Dye.
• Choose to either buy a single dye (not the stack!) or quick buy the standard dye.
• When prompted, insert LOTROSTYLIST as the coupon code. The price should be immediately set to zero after the coupon is applied.
• Checkout as normal.  Zero points will be removed, and you’ll get the dye in your bag.

If you would like inspiration for creating your perfect outfit be sure to visit all these wonderful Lotro Outfit resources! Cithryth’s Blog, Cosmetic Lotro, Curved Steel, Darzil’s, Lotro Fashion, Lotro Savvy, My Precious Outfitting, The Starry Mantle and finally the amazing Show us your favorite cosmetic outfit post at the Lotro community site.

All this week I will be featuring outfits using White dye. To start us off I made a new adventuring outfit for Devonna. I thought it matched perfectly with one of my favorite steeds, the Inn League Steed you can get by reaching Kindred status with the Inn League.

Head: Searcher’s Hat, dyed Sienna (T6 Crafted)
Chest: Skirmisher’s Armour, dyed White (T4 Crafted)
Legs: Silver Voice Leggings, dyed Sienna (Minstrel Helegrod Armour)
Feet: Ceremonial Boots of the West Tower, dyed White (Annuminas Heavy Armour)
Back: Inn League Survival Pack, dyed White (Lotro Store)
Steed: Inn League Steed (Kindred standing with the Inn League)

Our hard work on the different wings in Orthanc has paid off and this week Ked’s and my Kinship made it to Saruman! We still need a bit of polish to be able to take him down but the fight is a fun one.

As my Kin progressed through the different wings in Orthanc I often felt like my Rune-Keeper was not dressed appropriately. I usually switched between her casual dress outfit and her Draigoch armour. I personally don’t care too much for most of the Draigoch armour, especially the big emblems on the chest pieces. For Saruman, though, I finally put together a worthy battle ready outfit.

I have been in love with this robe since I first saw it, especially it’s lovely detailed back! It is from the Helegrod Rune-keeper set and until recently it was out of my reach of obtaining. After Update 5 this robe, as well as all the Helegrod armour sets, have become much easier to acquire.

Head: Ceremonial Circlet of the Seven Stars (Annuminas Light Armour)
Shoulders: Mantle of the Clever Counselor, dyed Black ( Draigoch Rune-Keeper)
Chest: Robe of the Learned, dyed Black (Helegrod Rune-Keeper)
Hands: Bracers of the Clever Counselor, dyed Crimson (Draigoch Rune-Keeper)
Feet: Boots of the Clever Counselor, dyed Black (Draigoch Rune-Keeper)
Class Item: Satchel, dyed Black

Now that they have made all of the Annuminas armours so easy to get I have been slowly adding them all to my stash of cosmetics. I noticed something odd though today when I was looking through the ceremonial versions on the Classics vendor at the skirmish camp. There is no ceremonial version of the heavy armour helmet, The Helm of the West Tower.

However, you can still get this in the regular level 65 (purple non dyeable set) and the level 55 original set. Another odd thing I noticed about this helm though was that the level 55 helm (The Set you can dye) was still unable to be dyed. I’m hoping this is just a bug.

Even with all the little problems I faced I still decided to purchase this helm because I LOVE it! I just dyed my outfit purple to match the helm.

Head: Helm of the West Tower (Annuminas Heavy)
Shoulders: Rock-Climber’s Shoulder Guards, dyed Purple (T6 Crafted)
Chest: Elegant Formal Dress, dyed Purple (Store)
Back: Golden Tree Summer Cloak, dyed Purple (Summer Festival)

If you read my blog then you know how much Ked and I love to make Ranger outfits. Here is a rugged leather version of one that will match the Steed of the Hunter.

Since Update 5 it is so much easier to acquire instance armour. Instead of having to actually complete the older instances which is difficult to find groups for we can now earn marks,medallions and seals that work with everything. For example the chest piece in this outfit would of required me to run several Helgrod raids to purchase it before Update 5. Today I got it for 430 marks and 156 medallions. Soooo much easier!!!

Head: Fine Grey Company Hood, Died Sienna (quest Book 5, Chapter 1: Separate Ways)
Shoulders: Padded Mantle of the Dunland Soothsayer, dyed Umber (quest Preparing for the Auction)
Chest: Spear-Shaker’s Jacket, dyed Olive (Warden Helgrod)
Hands: Heavy Plated Dunlending Gauntlets, dyed Umber (World Drop)
Legs: Westernesse Protector’s Leggings, dyed Olive (T5 Crafted)
Feet: Barrow-Scout Boots, dyed Umber (Medium Great-Barrow)
Back: Plain Cloak, dyed Umber (Any Outfitter)
Horse: Steed of the Hunter (Store Exclusive)

Hymne at Cosmetic Lotro has reported that you are now again able to barter for PVE cross class cosmetics.

I also received emails from two readers letting me know that I should go check out the Yule Festival barter NPC because there are 4 new cosmetics and a new mount. (Thank you Jay and Gwyn!) Sure enough, they were right! Have a look at the new cosmetic goodies.

Snowy Hoodless Cloak = 12 Yule Festival Tokens (Makes me curious where the hooded one is)
&
Brisk Yule Cloak =12 Yule Festival Tokens

Snowy Dress = 12 Yule Festival Tokens

Snowy and Pants = 12 Yule Festival Tokens

Snowy Steed = 1 race token, 1 Document of Mount ownership (200s) and 20 Yule Festival Tokens (Thanks Jay for the pic!)

This is a male and female kinship uniform based off of medieval minstrels. The hardest part of making kinship uniforms is trying to use pieces that everyone, no matter their level or account type, would be able to use. The one tricky part of the female outfit is the quest hat I used. However, Lotro has an abundance of alternatives that could be used.

Head: Iornaith’s Ward, dyed Red (quest [9] Spider-bane)
Chest: Barrow-scout’s Jacket (Medium Great Barrows Armour)
Legs: Steel-Legs, dyed Crimson (Found them in the AH but I’ve seen this graphic many other places.)
Feet: Barrow-scout’s Boots (Medium Great Barrows Armour)

When I was researching how medieval minstrels look I came across a lot of poofy shirts and poofy hats. The male version of this set might be a little more difficult for everyone in a kinship to try and use since I used a few RoI quest items but I really wanted to achieve the look I had seen while researching.

Head: Elegant Silk Had, dyed Red (quest [74] Retaking Riverwatch)
Shoulders: Padded Mantle of the Dunland Soothsayer, dyed Black (quest [69] Preparing for the Auction)
Chest: Cel-Crus (BoE item that drops from the RoI instances but can also be found on the AH)
Legs: Scarred leg-guards of the Pren Gwydh Warrior, dyed Black ([67] Once a Servant, Now a Wizard)
Feet: Barrow-scout’s Boots (Medium Great Barrows Armour)
Back: Plain Cloak, dyed Black (Any Outfitter)

This was such a fun experience. Thank you to everyone who submitted an outfit, I loved looking at each and everyone of them!

Judging Process 

Each of the judges picked their 3 favorite outfits to create a top 9. We each then scored those 9 outfits based on the following five criteria: (scoring them 1-5. A prefect score would be 5×5=25 points.)

• Representative of the Yule or Winter theme and spirit.
• Originality of the overall design.
• Integration of the various pieces used.
• Blending of dye colors.
• Overall impression.

At this point we added our three scores together to give the outfit it’s final score. (75 being the best score an outfit could receive.)

The Top 3

#1 Vindrayeth of Snowbourn

Head: Ceremonial Mammutti Helm (Sea blue dye), Lossoth reputation cosmetics
Shoulders: Yule Scarf (White dye), Yule festival
Chest & Leggings: Hauberk of Rhun (Sea blue dye), Lotro store
Gloves: Oven Mitts (White dye), Skirmish camp
Feet: Ceremonial Mammutti Boots (Sea bue dye), Lossoth reputation cosmetics
Back: Elk-Hunter’s Pack (White dye), Lotro store

#2  Jerremiah Jamtoes of Laurelin

Shoulders – Tactical assault westfold shoulder pads (dyed burgundy)
Chest – Dunlending’s hunting jacket (dyed burgundy)
Gloves – Leather Bracers of the gentle stag (dyed Sienna)
Cloak – Torhammas’ cloak (dyed Burgundy)

#3 Elyata of Gladden

Back: Cloak of the Mallorn, rivendell green
Chest: Hauberk of the Mirrormere, rivendell green
Gloves: Scorched Ox-Hide Gauntlets, crimson
Boots: Nightshade boots, crimson

The Top 9
1.  Vindrayeth of Snowbourn  
2.  Jerremiah  of  Laurelin
3.  Elyata of Gladden

4. Kemendin of Nimrodel
5. Frathluin of Riddermark
6. Ehefkae of Elendilmir
7. Diamint of Vilya
8. Twolegs of Landroval
9. Kiayiren of Evernight

Honorable Mention

Lonely Mountain Band Kinship of Landroval

Finally, We have put together a Flikr slideshow of all the entries we received.