Home - Elrond getting all the hugs from his family because he deserves it and you’re never convincing me Finarfin doesn’t absolutely adore his grandson-in-law. Design notes and a bunch of headcanons under the cut!
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Finarfin: Keeps away from weapons and harsh edges to his clothes to distance himself from the kinslaying. Unbound hair rather than Noldor braids or the like as his one link to the Teleri.
He doesn’t have any specific ‘colour’ because he’s married to a Telerin and has become High King of a very mixed group of elves over the years, especially as they started coming in the second and third ages. He doesn’t like coming across as some old school stubborn Noldo like his brothers were. His kingdom is for everyone.
He avoids solid red/blue like the plague though. Those are and always will be colours for Fëanor and Fingolfin. Part of it is distancing. The other is he *misses* them and can’t bear to wear their colours. Especially when they might never come back.
(Also Celebrian is the only one of his children or grandchildren to get his temperament ie. Soft and sweet but if you really push better run for your life. They’re very close. And literally who doesn’t love Elrond.)
Eärwen: Teleri are sea elves hence all the pearls. And I like the idea of the royal family having coral ‘crowns’ woven into their hair. Also only the women of the royal family wear pearls on their faces.
They also don’t wear gold, wearing jewellery of sea glass and pearls. They don’t use braids to keep back hair, instead twisting and pinning it, but Eärwen has her braid crown and the gold pendant as a call to marrying a Noldo. Finarfin did actually make the pendant for her when they officially announced the engagement, as was tradition for Noldor.
Elrond: Ok so I will forever see him in autumn colours because of Lotr and generally I think warm colours suit his personality. He’s gentle, welcoming. He wants to make you at home. His crown has the sharp design of the Noldor, but is less elaborate as a call to his mannish heritage, and to distance himself from the High Kings. He’s not a king. He doesn’t want to be. He has his hair loosely pulled back as a call to his Sindar heritage, only wearing clips gifted to him by the dwarves. Some of them came from Maedhros (based on my new design where Mae also wears clips gifted by the dwarves.)
Celebrian: Unbound hair in the style of the Sindar. (Also because Elrond always used to help her with her hair and she refuses to do it until he comes back.) Eärwen gave her the pearls to wear, but as a princess she doesn’t wear so many as a queen. She does decorate her hair with them though. Her clothes however are more Noldor in design, dark, rich colours, a heavier, less flowy material with the gold lined cuffs. The design is Mannish in origin. She also wears earrings, gifted by Elrond when they got engaged as was tradition in Numenor.
Essentially, she makes it very clear to everyone who her husband is after getting to Valinor. Especially with so many elves from Doriath - her father’s family and old friends/people - and various Noldor factions turning their noses at Elrond being a half elf who claimed traitor humans and kinslayers as family. So showing the more brash side form her mother, she made sure to shove it in their faces.
(Bear in mind, none of these elves who complain ever saw Elrond, and even fewer actually lived to the end of the First Age, so they have no right to judge anyway.)
In Rivendell, she was far more mixed in style, because no one really judged anyone. It was a celebration of cultures. She was known as their silver lady for a reason, and often wore silvery or white dresses, both in the style of the Noldor, and like her mother, Sindar loose cut with leafy embroidery as the only call to her Noldor heritage, but Celebrian also had her hair braided back.
In terms of Celebrian’s unbraided hair I’m also playing with the idea that loose, undecorated hair becomes a sign of grief or loss for Noldor some time over the First Age. She’s fully aware of that and uses it as a double meaning, only adding pearls when she hears Elrond is finally sailing.
This is also why Maglor’s hair becomes loose and wild over the years when he’s alone, and Mae’s hair is loose too at the end, at least until Maglor insists on braiding it for him.
