Blue Sentate Guard Fabric Studies

I have been struggling to find a blue velvet that satisfies my "mind's eye" for the Blue Senate Guard costume for my husband. As a result, I have collected a few swatches and thought it might be good to do a fabric study with all of them in one image under the same lighting. I chose to lay the swatches on top of my "Dressing A Galaxy" book on the pages that feature the Blue Guards, as a reference since I figure if people obsess about this costume like I do they will have this book as well and can use it as a color guide because all computer screen displays are slightly different.

(Click on an image to see it larger)

• The top left swatch (the largest one) is from an eBay vendor. It is the closest I've seen to the actual color of the robes which is a more dusty blue than royal blue. However, most people think of this costume as royal blue because that's how it most often photographs.

• The bottom left is from JoAnn's in a royal blue, but I think it is too dark.

• The top right is from SyFabrics in Royal Blue triple plush velvet.

• The bottom right is the Navy blue triple plush velvet from SyFabrics which is definitely too dark.

I think I might go with the Royal Blue from SyFabrics, even though it seems a bit too purple, just because it's fairly inexpensive, and readily available -which means that more people can purchase it and we can all match and look uniform. Sy also carries a lining fabric and poly/cotton fabric in Royal Blue that can be used to line the robe and create the inner garment, respectively.

Here are the swatches without flash.

Swatches with flash, different angle.