Why the Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power dwarves wear toed shoes (and have shields for their beards)

In many ways, costume designer Kate Hawley made the dwarves of The Rings of Power unlike any other Lord of the Rings dwarves.

A lot of that unique twist started with Hawley's first meeting with Owain Arthur, the actor who plays Durin. "A lot of [dwarf] furniture design and everything was quite heavy and more angular in this world," Hawley said during a recent panel moderated by EW at SCAD TVfest in Atlanta. "Then I met Owain for the first time — and he didn't walk into the room, he pirouetted into the room. He hopped in on his tippy-toes and I went, "Oh my God, this is a new way of looking at a dwarf. I want him to be light.'"

Hawley, who sat on the panel with Rings of Power concept artist John Howe and production designer Ramsey Avery, said it was also important to keep in mind that while dwarves are "humanoids, they have a different physicality" that goes beyond their short stature (an aspect aided by design calls like enlarging the size of the armor mail and dropping the waistline to mask the actors' true heights).

"Don't look at me weird, but I spent time looking at naked dwarfs," the award-winning designer said of the odd places her research led. "What is their physicality in this world and their body shape? It was a proportional exercise. And then inside formed the external of the costume."

One way that manifested was in the dwarves' unique footwear, which looks more akin to five-toed shoes than the usual dwarven boots.

"That idea for the boots actually came from classical Germanic statues and things like that," said Hawley, who is nominated for a Costume Designers Guild award for her work on the Amazon Prime Video series. "We used that as a reference and made their feet quite gnarly, and quite large, and just changed the physicality."

Hawley also looked at Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien's past works as well as 1920s expressionist films for inspiration — but it was Greek armor and statues (and "welder mask" drawings by Howe) that influenced the dwarves' helmets, which come complete with shields for their beards.

"It just made sense for the dwarves to do that," she said, adding that the beard length was also chosen to trick viewers into thinking the actors are smaller than they are. "We did a lot of thinking about proportions."

One detail Rings of Power viewers didn't get to see but Hawley really wishes had made it to screen is the dwarf babies. "Maybe in a future season," she said with a laugh.

Season 1 of The Rings of Power is currently streaming on Prime Video, and the eight-episode Making of The Rings of Power documentary is available with Prime Video's X-Ray technology.

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