'Question 4': What clothes did the peoples of Middle-earth wear? Was the winged crown of Gondor like that of a Valkyrie, or as depicted on a Gauloise cigarette packet?
Question 4.
I do not know the detail of clothing. I visualize with great clarity and detail scenery and 'natural' objects, but not artefacts. Pauline Baynes drew her inspiration for F. Giles largely from mediaeval MS. drawings – except for the knights (who are a bit 'King-Arthurish') the style seems
to fit well enough. Except that males, especially in northern parts such as the Shire, would wear breeches, whether hidden by a cloak or long mantle, or merely accompanied by a tunic.
I have no doubt that in the area envisaged by my story (which is large) the 'dress' of various peoples, Men and others, was much diversified in the Third Age, according to climate, and inherited custom. As was our world, even if we only consider Europe and the Mediterranean and the very near 'East' (or South), before the victory in our time of the least lovely style of dress (especially for males and 'neuters') which recorded history reveals – a victory that is still going on, even among those who most hate the lands of its origin. The Rohirrim were not 'mediaeval', in our sense. The styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit them well enough, if one remembers that the kind of tennis-nets [the] soldiers seem to have on are only a clumsy conventional sign for chainmail of small rings.
The Númenóreans of Gondor were proud, peculiar, and archaic, and I think are best pictured in (say) Egyptian terms.
In many ways they resembled 'Egyptians' – the love of, and power to construct, the gigantic and massive. And in their great interest in ancestry and in tombs. (But not of course in 'theology' : in which respect they were Hebraic and even more puritan – but this would take long to set out: to explain indeed why there is practically no oven 'religion',* or rather religious acts or places or ceremonies among the 'good' or anti-Sauron peoples in The Lord of the Rings.)
I think the crown of Gondor (the S. Kingdom) was very tall, like that of Egypt, but with wings attached, not set straight back but at an angle. The N. Kingdom had only a diadem (III 323). Cf. the difference between the N. and S. kingdoms of Egypt.