House of the Dragon, Season 1 has come and gone but this is the time when we can analyze the movie costumes of the entire season as a whole. Costume designer Jany Temime said that for Season 1, she created 2,000 costumes for the background players and 300 or more for the principal characters. With that amount of costumes, there are certainly going to be some hits and misses. This post is dedicated to the hits, the best stage costumes of the series. And in our next articles, we’ll also talk about the misses.
This material is based on the video from YouTube channel “Costume CO”.
So, let’s get started.
Color
This is a great place to start because the show is sort of like a canvas ready to be painted with a palette of colors. In a way, it's a very easy place for the showrunners and the design team to start because not only are the sigil colors in the source material but they are also featured prominently in HBO's Game of Thrones.
What is a bit different here, however, is that the colors at times are much more intense in House of the Dragon. They do wax and wane a bit and they are not always so on the nose, and we appreciated it.
So, from a storytelling perspective, the palette will reflect the situation or even show the allegiances or betrayals of a character.
Each of the Houses is represented in its full sigil colors – black & red for the Targaryens, smokey gray for House Hightower, red & gold for the Lannisters, and silver & seafoam green for House Velaryon.
Throughout the season, you see some characters move in and out of House colors.
Alicent Hightower
Alicent is likely the most prominent character whose story arc is closely aligned with her color palette.
She starts off in an innocent muted blue-gray and smoky gray, while her friendship with Rhaenyra is solid, into the teal blue and the green-black gown that belonged to her mother when, without the knowledge of Rhaenyra, she is spending time with Viserys.
After she marries Viserys, she moves in the direction of Viserys's late wife Emma, who dressed in a pinky rose color.
The color begins to become more saturated as she begins to feel more isolated and suspicious of Rhaenyra.
But then in Episode 5 – bang! Right into the emerald green.
From there on, she is largely in this color.
We also see The Green Council, most notably Otto Hightower, with the green creeping into his wardrobe.
Rhaenyra Targaryen
As a young woman, Rhaenyra is in gold and soft pink like her mother but, as she matures, her wardrobe is largely dominated by red, black, and gold.
By the end of Season 1, she embraces her full colors.
Viserys Targaryen
Viserys is the most steadfast dresser of the season, consistently in black, red, and gold.
Viserys and Alicent's children
As babies, Alicent's children are dressed in Targ colors, but as a mother who likely selects the clothing of her children, the boys and, at times, Helaena are dressed in green.
By the way, as a young girl of about the same age as Rhaenyra, Helaena also wears pink, but then she changes into gold as a married woman with children of her own.
While princess Rhaenys and Corlys dressed in Velaryon colors, she begins to move back into her Targ colors, especially with her armor, which also matches the color of her dragon Meleys called the Red Queen.
Bonus
There's one really clever use of color with Laenor and Joffrey at the pre-wedding banquet in the episode “We Light the Way”.
Dressed in similar-style tunics, Laenor's hair is silver white, while Joffrey wears silvery brocade with Laenor wearing gold and brown brocade to tie into Joffrey's golden brown hair.
Fabrics
One of the greatest aspects of House of the Dragon costume design is that fabrics and the color and texture of the fabrics is a great way to tell a story through costume.
Jany Temime often combines two or more fabrics to make up one costume.
Like Game of Thrones who purchased a lot of fabrics from Top Fabric of Soho in London, many of the fabrics for House of the Dragon were purchased there. Most importantly, Top Fabric provided the emerald green fabric for Alicent's statement gown in the “We Light the Way” episode.
And the swirl brocade fabric for her other green gown in Episode 9.
Daemon's silver brocade and Helaena's black brocade are also from Top Fabric.
The London fabric store also custom-milled the Targaryen brocade in a variety of colorways. That fabric was used in Rhaenyra's cloak, the lining of Viserys's cloak, and for Alicent's wedding gown from a cut scene.
We can also identify fabrics purchased from Joel & Son Fabrics in London and B&J Fabrics in New York.
D'Alessio Galliano leather producers in Italy provided many of the leathers for the show.
Details
The details are an absolute hit. To start, along with the fabrics, there are examples of gorgeous trims, braids, and beading, but the standout feature is the embroidery.
Michele Carragher was the principal embroidery artist on Game of Thrones and she is back with a team of two additional embroidery artists and beaders.
They did an incredible job displaying the heraldry and dragon motifs of House Targaryen on Viserys's coat, Rhaenyra's gown, Rhaenyra and Laenor's wedding cloak, and Rhaenyra's black cloak.
There is also a lot of beautiful cutwork detail on both Viserys's and Rhaenyra's hunting costumes, including the embossed patchwork Targaryen applique on this Viserys's tunic.
Many of the trims are beautiful, like this spiky detail on the cuffs of young Rhaenyra's gown and finishing details on the costumes, including the Celtic-themed dragon fasteners and dragon talon findings that appear on multiple Targaryen costumes.
It was also a pleasant surprise to see some lace in the show – there was no lace in Game of Thrones at all, but in the books, George R. R. Martin often writes of Myrish lace, an import from Myr, one of the Free Cities of Western Essos. It's described as “delicate, intricate, and filmy”.
We suspect that the real-world equivalent to Myrish lace would be needle lace and bobbin lace, which were first developed in the 16th century.
Along with the embroideries, there are pleating textures on some of the costumes, including Rhaenyra's season finale gown that features a flat chevron pleat that has the appearance of dragon scales.
This is a call back to Danny's costume that featured that same pleating technique of her red dragon cape.
The subtle use of symbolism is lovely. We see this on Larys, with a firefly in his cane and the brooches worn by his assassins, as well as the fly motif on his buttons.
Young Alicent's dress appears to foreshadow alliances with Ser Criston Cole with the chevron pattern on his armor and the detail of Alicent's collar of her teal blue gown, which looks similar to the battlement or crenellation of the tower from her House sigil.
Jewelry
Jewelry pieces used in House of the Dragon series are striking – necklaces, bracelets, earrings, chains of office, brooches, crowns, you name it. Both the men and women in House of the Dragon are festooned with jewelry.
Some of the items, like the earrings, necklaces, and rings worn by Alicent and Rhaenyra, are off-the-rack from a large jewelry retailer, while other items are bespoke.
Alicent's 7-pointed star was created for the show, worn with a gold livery chain and chatelaine, a set of short chains for carrying keys, a thimble, and/or a sewing kit.
The Hand of the King broach, for instance, was originally designed for Game of Thrones. At the first glance, it was the same, but having looked at it closer, we see they've changed it slightly. The original pin looks similar to the silver ring fibulae from the grave find in Gotland, Sweden.
They've revised the new Hand of the King broach to incorporate a Viking-era penannular broach, similar to this example of a grave find in Gotland.
And if you look at the Maesters’ chains, they look like they've been cobbled together from a Viking-age horde find.
Costume designer Jany Temime said that Otto's chains were handcrafted for the show. And Rhaenyra's Velaryon steel necklace was probably also bespoke.
One of the standouts was the jewelry worn by young Rhaenyra with her fealty gown, with the costume designer taking inspiration for the costume from the Byzantine era.
And some of the jewelry, namely her earrings, from Moroccan brides.
One of the cute things about House of the Dragon jewels was seeing all of the chain of office necklaces on many of the men, oftentimes set with gemstones in their House colors.
Viserys wears the chain of office of his grandfather King Jaehaerys, the first Targaryen. This item looks custom-made, set with rubies.
Laenor's chain appears to be set with sapphires, while Aegon’s is set with emeralds.
In future seasons, we hope to see more bespoke jewelry or even acquired from small vendors, like Michele Clapton did on Game of Thrones.
Armor
While we like the design of Daemon Targaryen's armors, we have some issues with the execution. But there are armors in Season 1 that we liked very much, like the armors of the Gold Cloaks and the Targaryen armor.
The Gold Cloaks are practical, with a coat of plates armor and helmet that looks like nasal helms. The only quibble is that the armor has a big gap under the arms, with just a cloth gambeson worn under their armor, so there's no protection against pointy things.
But the chevron texture of their cloaks is nice. That pattern appears frequently in Season 1.
The Targaryen soldiers, on the other hand, wear mail under their hard leather armor.
The red breastplate and backplate and skirts with brass studs of the Targ armor were made by PERIS Costumes International in Spain.
The other armor that we enjoyed was the Seven Knights vying for a position with the king’s guard. It's very rare to see all of the knights and squires wearing surcoats.
It was really funny to see Ser Criston Cole singled out. Coming from a lesser House, he had no squire, no banner, and no surcoat.
Matt Easton mentioned in one of his videos that Criston's armor is ill-fitting, but that awkwardness worked well here.
The other thing we loved was Otto's armor. It was different and refreshing to see that he was wearing mail under his plate armor.
But, hands down, the best armor in the entire season was that of the Velaryon armor worn by Corlys, his brother Vaemond, and his son Laenor.
But Corlys's armor is the best! With all of the detailing and gold, and fish scale mail under his plate armor.
Corlys's helm looked like the shape of a scallop which ties into his pommel and belt buckle.
It appears to be inspired by the 15th or 16th-century plate armors of the time.
