A Game of Clothes - Game of Thrones' costume legacy
The traditionally feminine art of dressmaking was often looked down upon in the Game of Thrones universe, but there is something to be said about how a show that was often criticised for poor treatment of its female characters carved out such an impressive legacy of costume design.
Characters like Cersei Lannister, Sansa Stark, Margaery Tyrell and Daenerys Targaryen wore clothes with purpose throughout their journeys, used as a weapon to distract, emulate and trick their enemies.
However, throughout the show’s run the traditionally feminine arts are consistently degraded, with comments such as from fan-favourite character Lyanna Mormont declaring, “I may be small. I may be a girl, but I won’t be knitting by the fire while I have men fight for me” in the very episode that Sansa Stark is carefully planning provisions for the Northern soldiers' wardrobes to keep them warm in winter.
Game of Thrones costume designer Michele Clapton has spent eight years designing thoughtful outfits for the characters we have loved, and loved to hate.
“The costumes always tell stories, often hinting at loyalties and desires.” Clapton told Marie Claire.
From hairstyles to delicate embroidery, each character deftly wove their own story through their sartorial choices. It was in many ways an empowering way to show the strength of resolve and cleverness of the non-fighting characters in the series, as well as illuminating the thoughts and motivations of characters whose dialogue is internally oriented – a challenge in bringing characters from page to screen.
Sansa Stark
Sansa’s journey from a young, naïve girl to our steadfast Queen in the North has been intricately displayed through her costuming.
Season one through three saw summery costumes, evolving from guileless pastel blues and pinks to a prominent dark shade of purple to reflect her loss of innocence and royally stoic demeanour. Clapton paid strong attention to detail in embroidery, placing emphasis on butterfly and dragonfly imagery. Butterflies are symbolic of transformation, courtesy of their journey from cocoon to fluttering beauty, whereas dragonflies are strongly rooted in Japanese culture, where they stand for courage, strength and happiness. Sansa often wore a butterfly necklace and rings throughout the early seasons.
As Sansa was forced to marry into the Lannister family, her Stark roots started to show more vividly. Her wedding dress in season three is created from stiff jacquard material, detailed with gorgeous beaded embroidery depicting the Stark direwolf, the Lannister lion, and even trout to represent the Tully sigil of Sansa’s mother, Catelyn. Altogether intertwined, it shows the story of Sansa’s life up until that point, while providing a constricted movement indicative of her entrapment.
Season four saw Sansa leave King’s Landing with Petyr Baelish under the guise of Alayne Stone. Gone was her auburn-coloured hair, replaced with jet black. This phase of her life saw her wearing dark, fur-lined cloaks that indicated a murky gradation under Baelish’s tutelage. This culminated in her show-stopping, feather-embellished dress titled the ‘Maleficent Dress’ by the Internet, when she made a dramatic staircase descent in front of a slack-jawed Baelish who she had clearly already begun to successfully manipulate. Sansa accompanied this with a striking necklace she wore throughout the rest of the series – a chain-style accessory with a needle at the end, perfectly representative of her self-made strength and transformation, and a mirror to her sister Arya’s sword.
Seasons seven and eight saw Sansa often crafting outfits herself, including embroidering the direwolf sigil into her dresses and creating Stark armour for Jon Snow.
Daenerys Targaryen
In many ways, Sansa and Daenerys had a similar clothing journey. As the seasons wore on, they became increasingly patriotic towards their family sigils, epitomising the close link between the characters’ motivations and their sartorial choices.
Season one saw Daenerys in gentle georgette fabrics, mirroring her innocent personality and delicate disposition. Her exposure to the Dothraki saw her in their styles, earthy materials in khaki and neutral tones.
From then on, the Mother of Dragons’ looks were awash with bright colours as she wove her way through the seven kingdoms, winning allies and defeating her enemies in style. The looks were practical and feminine, often crafted from stiff, scale-ruched fabric accessorised with matching capes, almost a mirror to the wings of a dragon.
In season seven, Daenerys wore copious amounts of white and fur, reflecting her support of Jon Snow in the North. It gave her an almost pure look that was to be so drastically overturned in the following season.
Season eight saw Daenerys finally don the black and red colours of her house, highlighted with prominent silver dragon embellishments.
Cersei Lannister
Unlike the aforementioned characters, Cersei’s love of her family has been present in her clothes since day one. Cersei has never had doubts about her affiliation – House Lannister has her entire soul. From the very first season, Cersei is usually adorned in crimson and gold, leaving no doubt as to where her loyalties lie.
Powerful, ambitious and certain of herself, Cersei’s style has always been confident, with bold furs, quilted silks, bold embroidered lions to her back to match her long, golden Lannister mane of hair.
Gradually, Cersei’s sartorial choices became more powerful. Golden breastplates and chainmail signified not only her growing influence, but also her fear of being uprooted as her true nightmare came to light in the form of Margaery Tyrell, who she believed to be the prophesied younger and more beautiful queen who would cast her down.
Following her imprisonment and the infamous walk of shame, Cersei’s took on a more severe look with her shorn hair, and continued to wear metallic facades of armour over black fabrics to signify mourning over the loss of her children. Skeletal embellishments down the spine of her corsets recalled the idea that Cersei considered herself the backbone of House Lannister. Her style was complemented, of course, by an ever-present crown that reminded all who was in power.
Margaery Tyrell
Margaery’s outfits were some of the most aesthetically beautiful of the show’s tenure, reflected by the character herself: beautiful and loved. Characterised by innocent blues, the softly flowing fabrics were interspersed with the prominent golden roses of House Tyrell.
Her looks were beautiful and uncomplicated, unassuming like the way she wished to present herself as she schemed against Cersei Lannister under the façade of inimitable gentleness.
During her wedding to Joffrey, her dress was crafted in pale blue and featured a train of roses with a bodice embellished in roses and glinting metallic thorns, reminding everyone that “some roses have steel thorns”.
Overall, Game of Thrones’ impressive and bold costume design showed how clothes can be an art form as well as a way of self-expression, a sentiment that will linger long after its final episode. These women of Westeros presented themselves powerfully, regardless of their ability to fight – waging a quiet but not insignificant war against the preconceived notions against them. If they were underestimated, they made fools of those who did not care to take a closer look – and Sansa Stark ending as Queen in the North is a testament to that fact.