View of Disney's Mozenrath

I made a very literal version of this costume several years ago for Halloween. It was OK, I guess, though I wasn’t super happy with it, simply because it was very very simple.

Halloween 2006 Mozenrath costume

Mozenrath’s costume is so simple because it was drafted for a poorly-animated cartoon show in the early 90s–low bandwidth, low budget, and drawing any kind of detailed costume (without computer help) just can’t happen.

I thought the best way to update this costume would be to put it back in the spirit of the 1001 Arabian Nights, my favorite book growing up, and what the entire Aladdin series is extremely loosely based on.  TheMozenrath character is supposed to be an evil wizard-type character, and I’ve determined that if anything he probably should be Persian (even though most characters in the Disney series are very vaguely Arab).

With that in mind, I started to research 16th century classical Persian fashions to reverse-engineer what a Mozenrath might look like in garb of that time.

I'm not very good at crosshatching

What I’ve found is lots of brocades and damask silks, a great deal of ornamentation and detail work. Basically the complete opposite of how he appears in the show!

This entire costume is very much in the preliminary planning stage so, aside from a sketch or two, I have nothing to show.  But I have found some handy damask silk and brocade stores online as well as an incredibly detailed classical Persian clothing pattern site.

Rashid’s Persian Patterns – historically accurate Persian clothing patterns complete with antique fabric swatches to get an idea of the colors and detailing in the clothes.

Persian Miniature Paintings — more good reference

Decorative International Silk — some good silks here, including some damask silks, though they are upholstery weight

B.R. Exports — some great silks direct from India

Will keep you posted…