That Time I Nearly Bought Stuff

 Many of you may have seen recently that a whole bunch of screen used Xena costume pieces appeared on eBay recently. This was blogged about by Xena Prop Treasures - a veritable treasure trove of Xena information and updates on props, costumes, auctions and discoveries. The costumes listed were a variety of characters and prices and the full blog post can be found here: Awesome costumes sale!

As someone who is normally a total tightwad, it is practically unheard of for me to drop actual CASH on anything expensive, but I was actually tempted by some of these - mainly Gabrielle's sari from the Indian episodes of series 4.

My thinking was partly that this is SUCH an iconic costume that it would be a beautiful thing to have, but also partly that I could use the actual piece as reference in order to colour match fabrics and replicate patterns, plus finding out how it was constructed and exactly what those white decals on the top are made of. Are they embroidery? Are they beads? Who can say? Well, the person who wins the auction, that's for sure!

Well that person wasn't me. (There, that put you all out of your misery didn't it?) I did bid though. I bid quite a bit. But I didn't bid $1200 which is around what the thing eventually went for. Hardly surprising either as I do think this is one of the most beautiful and unique (if not excessively shown) of all Gab's main costumes. The colours are also some of the most difficult to pin down. The top looks orange in some shots and bright mustard yellow in others! So in the absence of having the funds to outbid the many, many other fans who fought to purchase this piece, I shall look forward to replicating this one from picture references and the like once I have worked my way through to season 4. Of course the photo reference from the auction itself has already proved more than useful - is that a ZIP in the back of Gab's skirt? Oh well, plenty of time to put this plan of action together. Judging by that skirt I shall have to get the hang of screen printing...

Oh well. Who doesn't love a challenge?

Congratulations to all those who won any of these auctions! Enjoy your shiny things.