One of things that I really like about the Starks costumes is the lack of metal in the early seasons. In a interview, one of the costumers explained that the details around Sansa’s collars (embroidery and knotting) are to compensate for no metal necklaces or jewellery- because it would be horrendous to have naked metal against your skin in subzero temperatures. It’s such a nice touch.
@@Fledhyris Well, we’ll never know. Still I think the logic makes sense. We know that scarves, mittens/gloves and cloaks were all relatively common which would hide rings and necklaces in the winter months. Maybe their clothes were worm enough to protect them, or maybe they only wore the jewellery on warmer days. It could perhaps explain why we find so many really ornate cloak pins which wouldn’t be hidden under layers of clothes.
@@Fledhyris Vikings were super into jewellery that was pinned to clothing; brooches, pins and other fastenings. Also the climate in Scandinavia could be pretty mild especially in coastal areas - all of Scandinavia wasn’t a frigid, year-round wintery landscape (even parts of Greenland, that was settled by vikings, was considerably milder, than it is today - there is a reason they named it as such).
@@BexMatthies Exactly! Same for Winterfell! I mean it makes sense not to wear metal jewellery against your skin if you're working or fighting in the snow, but nobody does that anyway - jewellery is for wearing at court or at home, when you have fires lit and it's just not that cold.
Definitely. Queen Elizabeth II's coronation gown had embroidery depicting all the floral emblems of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Nations. Queen Elizabeth was not the only one to use symbolism in her coronation gown. Queen Mary and Queen Mother's dresses also had a similar idea. It is highly likely that Sansa would take the opportunity to use soft power tactics and think carefully what her coronation gown would indicate to her people.
I noticed that at the last US presidential inauguration, Jill Biden wore a coat with all the state/territory flowers embroidered on it. Perfect moment for symbolism.
IIRC the weddings also involved exchanging elaborate coats with house sigils, or at least the groom coating the bride in theirs. So yes, house symbolism on the clothes is very fitting - and generally used a lot by members of the top houses, also on weapons like Longclaw or Dawn.
The one thng I loved reading about was the fact that when Margaery Tyrell comes to King's Landing a lot of the nobles and courtiers are dressed similarly to Cersei, both hair and dresses. And as Margaery starts to gain power and is enroute to become the queen ladies of the court start dressing more and more like her. It's really fascinating!
I think it’s interesting because it also means that Cersei is losing her power because people are paying less attention to Cersei. Ladies are starting to figuratively ally themselves with Margaery by following her style.
This happened in real history; when Anne Boleyn was in favor, the women of the court wore French hoods and less-modest clothing. When Jane Seymour overtook her in Henry's favor (even though Anne was his wife and the Queen), the women immediately copied Jane's gabled hood and more modest clothing.
And when the faith millitant is getting stronger. All women including margaery were starting to wear less revealing clothing. They cover their shoulder, neck, and cleavage.
It's actually a historical political thing as well. This is more early medieval, but during the conflict between the Romans(Byzantines), and the Germans(Charlemagne's family and co.) over the Lombards, each time the Lombards changed their overlord they wore their style of clothing and cut their hair and facial hair accordingly.
When it comes to repeating outfits, one of my favorite details is that Margaery's handmaidens will wear dresses that she has worn previously; meaning she either shares with them or gives dresses to them when she is done with them. Sometimes they will add a scarf to change it up a bit, but you can still recognize them.
The Queen of England had outfits altered over the years, but documentaries also say that if she is no longer going to wear something and not altering it, then she offered it to her ladies in waiting, but that tags had to be removed and the ladies were to change them enough that they would not be instantly recognized as wearing the Queen's clothes. Recycling, good to be thrifty.
It's canonical too, in the books she was known for being kind to her handmaids, remember handmaids in this world tend to be young ladies from minor houses, even Sansa isn't very nice to hear handmaids until she meets Shae
A nice part of one of Sansa’s dresses seems to be that she’s outgrown it- it is too tight along the sleeves and the back, and she has not the time or resources to make herself a new dress or to have a new dress made for herself (cersei is her guardian at this time and Cersei isn’t very nice)
This is a really small thing, but I absolutely love Sansa's costume in the line up- specifically because, from a lore perspective, it would make 100% sense that it is a hand-me-down from her mother. Sansa is the outlier in that scene, being in a very pale blue. If it was a common dye then we would see other northerners wearing similar- but we don't, it's only her. It also looks to be much lighter than everyone else's clothes. We might not see anything similar in the north, but look at the Riverlands and the Vale- we see similar colors everywhere. Catelyn is from the Riverlands, and it looks like mother and (eldest) daughter are the same height and general build- meaning it could very well be a dress Catelyn brought with her to the North after her wedding, and then put away somewhere when she realized it was impractical, so it never got much wear- making it perfect to give to Sansa for when the King and family are visiting- an occasion that mandates exquisite dress, especially for a daughter coming up to marriage age.
Yes I agree with you! It makes a lot of sense, especially considering that Sansa at that point is yearning for the south as she perceives it as the setting of most of the songs. Catelyn’s dress probably appealed to Sansa as a way to seem more Southron and thus more like the ladies in the songs
This makes perfect sense, given how Sansa takes after her mother physically, and even tries to mirror her personality and behaviour early on. Sansa's actual character is probably more like Ned though; gentle, idealistic and quite naive. As she becomes disillusioned with her previous fantasies of the south, and yearns for Winterfell, she starts adapting more Stark clothing and specifically ones that are similar to what Ned and Robb wore.
@@stoneheart8231 I haven't yet searched to see if it's mentioned in another video, but I can't believe we didn't see Sansa's "raven" dress that she made in the Vale.
I think we all got so wrapped up in how bad the writing was getting that we forgot how great and hardworking everyone in every other aspect of the show was. This is a great example of exactly that. The costuming is clearly spectacular.
I was thinking the same thing. It's a shame I can't stand so much of the plot because I LOVE all the intricate details, and videos like these make me think "hey maybe you should give it another try". (Of course the double-edged sword of all the detail is that I had a *very* hard time keeping track of some things, and pretty much anything that was mildly subtle got lost to me unless someone pointed it out to me. I just plain don't have the brain for GRRM).
IMO, poor ending writing or not, it's still possibly the best-acted TV series I've ever watched, too. The scripts and film time might have fallen apart toward the end, but everyone else involved gave their best.
Exactly! The embroidery in the final seasons WERE AMAZING, the wigs were amazing (yet Dany's were kind of unrealistic at some time, but I think it was on purpose), that damn white coat of Dany... the examples can go on and on.
I was really impressed how martin dealt with the topic of shoes. The two kids that travel with arya and joren to the nights watch were loured in by the promise of shoes and food for example. And when a soldier dies bronn is described of taking his shoes because they were of finer leather. Same is seen when one of the dead kills ser jeffrey on the wall: another man of the nights wach takes all of his clothing.
In an era where the vast majority of people were walking literally everywhere I would imagine you’d be fixated on having good shoes. I’ve worked jobs where I’ve been on my feet all day in cheap shoes and all you can think about by the end of the day is how much your feet hurt. Living in that era I can absolutely understand why you’d be tempted to stab someone for their nice boots.
even though i didnt really watch the series in entirety i attribute a lot of the points that bernadette talked about to martin's insane attention to detail, he did really establish his world in a way that makes sense historically, and i do recall a lot of garments being described with their cultural (or symbolic) significance. and ofcourse it seems like the design team made an absolute amazing job translating that to screen
A thing about the King's Guard. In the books they keep their own plate armour and their only identifying feature is the white cloak. Because even in as rich a city as King's Landing, the thought of uniform plate armour is kind of ridiculous. The idea with the white cloak is that they have no crest or banner, no family, no alliance other than to the king. It mirrors the Night's Watch, who also have no duty other than to the wall. Their crest is therefore black and empty. It is canon in the books that new recruits just get everything dyed, because it's the most practical, whereas recruits from noble houses mostly already come with a full set of black clothes. You can see that in the very first scene of S1E1 between the three Watchmen. The social structure stays the same even in the supposed egalitarian Night's Watch.
okay I know that in reality uniform plate armour is ridiculously expensive, but I have yet to be shown a method of dying black that isn't ruinous to an already malfunded organisation.
@@julecaesara482 well charcoal would actually darken your clothing a lot, and I dont even want to consider how much fire they need at the wall to stay warm. so a charcoal would be available for dyeing clothing. It is ofcourse a bad pigment to dye with but the enormous excess of charcoal may lend to redying as part of the washing process.
Iron nails+acid make mordant solution and bark of tree with lots of tannins like oaks make dark coloured clothing easy and cheap. Also thay could kept black coloured sheeps for wool, milk and meet.
If I recall from the books, the other thing about the cloaks is that it immediately distinguishes them from the other soldiers & guards in kings landing. Maybe a completely impractical waste of textile but it does signify they are the king’s hand-picked guard and possibly deserve a little more respect. At least that’s how they would see it. I’m sure the people of Flea Bottom couldn’t care less
These are the types of videos I want when I type 'how to create a fantasy world' I want the almost impossible to notice details, talked about by the people that are actually going to notice them. Please make more videos like this.
You might actually be able to find this type of information in more anthropological studies/content/whatever! A lot of what Bernadette touched on is based on/related to research done in cultural anthropology
On the cultural aspects, the slaver garment in the books (which has a name I can't remember) requires that the wearer constantly hold the garment together. Making it very clear that whoever wears it doesn't have to do any manual labour.
I think it was pretty much just the Roman toga, made more ornate (the Carthaginian fringe ) and worn by all the nobles, not just adult males. The culture of Slavers Bay was a cross between Rome and Carthage.
Yes, the Tokar is a traditional Slaver’s Bay style garment worn by only the nobility as it is INCREDIBLY impractical. It’s basically just a big sheet of very expensive fabric that you have to wrap around yourself in a very specific way (around the hips, under an arm, then forwards over the shoulder) and hold in place with your left hand. It’s said that if the Tokar is wrapped too tight, it might tangle and you could trip, and if it’s wound too loose, it could very easily just fall off of you (so very reasonable why this was not adopted for the show lol). In one of Dany’s chapters, her Dothraki handmaidens (+Missandei presumably) have to wrap it around her three times until they get it right, and in another Dany comments on the fact that she has to make smaller strides when she walks when wearing a Tokar since it’s also quite a bit restrictive of movement. As for other garments the masters and nobility wear, very briefly in Book 5 (or Season 5) in the fighting pits scene (if you know, you know) Dany gets bored of sitting around in her Tokar and just takes it off along with some veils she was wearing, and it’s briefly stated that she was wearing some sort of under-tunic (since without it no doubt the crowd would be losing their minds that their queen just completely undressed in front of them cause she felt like it XD). The slavers also shape their hair (which is sometimes black and red and other times just one or the other in the books) into the shape of wings, horns, and even a unicorn horn in Astapor I believe, using oils, but Dany isn’t explicitly stated to have adopted this along with the Tokar. The Tokars are also decorated very richly with very expensive fringes to indicate the wearer’s status. For example, Dany has one with a fringe of baby pearls, one with Myrish lace, and more with gold and silver. Sorry this is super long, I’m just very enthusiastic about book-accurate ASOIAF fashions 😅 Edit: Holy cow, that’s a lotta likes 👀 Thanks! 🙏
@@nevaehaho61 no that was great I love the intricacies of the asoiaf books and am thrilled to see someone else with equal enthusiasm in the “wild”, I’m more obsessive over the religions, magic systems, and universe internal history.
I have a lovely friend from northeastern Scotland and she told me that the majority of the embroidery and lace work was done by the embroiderers in Aberdour, New Aberdour, and other parts of Aberdeenshire 😊 She is in her 70’s and was so excited to watch GOT for the embroidery…. She blushed when telling me about all the …um… intimate scenes! 😂
Bit like if you go a wee bit south you’ll find Dundee is the home of rigging and ropes, with all the jute fibre, linked so tightly with the port and all that sea trade. I love how certain places are associated with certain industries like that, like mascot materials (indeed there was a time when people would dress in costumes suited to each location to be like a mascot, such as the woman from Sheffield with all the steel)
This is an absolute master class on the importance of world building in fiction. You focused on the clothing, for reasons... but there's so much information here that could also be applied to architecture, food, or other cultural things. Excellent!!
i’m so glad we’ve circled back around to appreciating the GoT tv show again. the first 4 seasons are so amazing, they don’t deserve to be stunk up by the last four.
Yeees! The first four seasons are so great. They've got their faults, sure, but it's some of the best TV I've ever seen. Then it all went to shit lol. But I still appreciate the first few seasons, they're just too good to dismiss.
Even the last four deserve consideration for all the work the artisans made to create the environments, as they had more budget for it. I loved Daenery's dragon coat and the emboideries made for house Martell dresses as well as rooms like the Stark Library
Having attended Costume College in the past, this absolutely felt like one of its classes, and I am here for this! Not only did it go into the analysis of the show itself, but I totally learned about how to figure this kind of thing out for myself on other pieces of media in the future! I felt like I actually learned something that I can take with me instead of the normal picking at another show that I’ve seen in the past. Also, may I just say how refreshing it was that she considered this historically accurate, not because of how it compares to our world, but in the continuity of another? Because it’s easy to look at at TV, hold it up against the familiar, then complain when it doesn’t match; it’s much harder and yet so much better to go through the processes these things could develop through anywhere and use that instead.
I am a fabric artist and Game of Thrones is fascinating! Thank you! I would just like to mention that the costume designer is Michele Clapton and the embroidery is the work of Michele Carragher. I would have loved to work on this amazing project!
Would love to see something similar on LOTR. I loved their costumes and the designer Ngila Dickson took a lot of care about them. Even it hobbit movies, with different designer, among the dwarves they have different colours and fabrics to symbolise different areas they came from.
"Culturally consistent" might have been a more accurate description. Thank you for this gem of an analysis. It is details like these that can either break or sustain immersion. Most viewers may not pay attention to them consciously, but they will definitely feel it when something is off.
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on the costuming of the upcoming House of the Dragon show when it airs. It's set during the height of the Targaryen dynasty and you can definitely see the wealth and decadence in the costuming already just from the trailers and promotional photos. Season 1 will also span a couple of decades with multiple time skips, hopefully that will be apparent in the costuming. They seem to be taking a more "historically inspired" approach in the design than the original show where it was more pure fantasy. So far I'm really impressed with it.
There are some few people on YT that I can watch and re-watch, and you're at the top of that list. Erudite, energetic, entertaining, with diction and enunciation to die for!
I was *going* to say I fell in love with ASOIAF when I read Sansa thinking about how Northern women don't have the money to waste on jewelry, and that staying warm was more important, and they take pride in their embroidery and sewing skills instead, and now, and because nothing can be that easy, I can't actually find that passage.
About halfway through the video and just noticed the image in the bottom left corner of the collage board behind Bernadette with the Cool Shades. Excellent 😂
Barnadette + Game of Thones... how could this be more perfect ? I love how you walked us through all this with such passion in your voice... very interesting and we learned a lot
I can’t wait to see the costumes in House of the Dragon considering the incredible world the costume designers of GoT created. I have high expectations
I positively loved how analytic and technical clothing, fashion, and costume can truly become when approached with passion and inquiry such as by you! thrilling video
First things first, I've loved this video because it combines so many things I'm passionate about. What you have been explaining is called internal logic or cohesion in writting and worldbuilding, and that's exactly what Michele Clapton did when designing Game of Thrones's costumes. Second, if anyone would like to go deeper into the costuming of GOT the channel costume co in youtube has at least a dozen of videos worth of content. If you on the other hand would like to know how to construct a realistic clothed world, I cannot recommend enough Maria Pattie's worldbuilding channel, where she has at least five videos dedicated to the subject.
A thought I had about the dress Shae is given being less tailored is that not only is it less wasteful of fabric in its construction, it's less wasteful of fabric in its specificity. A loose dress that is cinched tight around the form with adjustable belts and such is a dress that can be given to a guest to wear and then kept by its actual owner for later guests. I might even go so far as to say that such a dress could be intentional as a reminder that the wearer is not irreplaceable to their patron.
About outfit repeating - the first time I remember noticing this was in the MASH TV show. The characters are all living in an army hospital far away from home and have only brought a few items of clothing with them. Hawkeye's blue Hawaiian shirt, Mulcahy's grey Loyola sweater, BJ's yellow kimono-style shirt are items you see over and over and over again. It's really charming and grounds them in their location.
I truly love the nerding out about historical clothing and costume logic. Fantastic! I wonder.. I know historybounding is a thing, is fantasybounding a thing too? Because I certainly wouldn't mind some clothing inspired by GoT. Those lovely loose dresses for summer, and the thick tailored wools for winter that have a very distinct medieval flavour. Just lovely! As soon as I can move more than one of my four limbs, I might have a think about how to design something that works...
Fantasy bounding is certainly a trend; any comic con,Renn faire, over even a theme park are filled with examples. Why not take it further: my husband who was a lawyer would wear a chainmail tie when a legal battle seemed imminent.
I always assumed Winterfell favoured raising black sheep and goats, not just to provide their Guard with woolens to match their dark brown and black pelts and furs without the need to waste resources on dyes (few of which would thrive in their climate anyways), and for whatever cultural reasons, but also because getting black from dyeing is really tricky and quite expensive (assuming their world has dyes similar to our world), so good colour-fast black wool can be one of the few exports Winterfell can compete with in the other kingdoms and rely on for trade. I imagine Winterfell guards its flocks quite jealously and forbids their sale live (to maintain their monopoly), but also imposes a total ban on importing goats and sheep to protect the purity of those flocks and ensure they retain the precious quality of their fleece.
Everyone but the show runners 💯% gave a sh*t, & put so much effort into each of their fields- every single one of them deserves praise for creating the unique & beautiful worlds we saw in S1-4 - & none of the blame for the story & character ruination of s5-8 - they really all did the best that they could, with what restrictions were forced on them. The costume & prop people are **artists** & I will never *not* be impressed by their world-building skills. Watching the clip on Michelle Caragher’s processes was mind-blowing...
Your commentary on confirming the quality of care and detail to this series makes me enjoy the series more. I am glad to see the producers took time to care about accuracy for costumes in such a made up story and land. Your ability to analyze costumes from a finished series really is a testament to your knowledge on costume design in history. You would be an amazing asset to a production team for historical movies and costume design.
A beautiful lecture on nerding out in style! :) I've tried dyeing with natural substances, it's a fun practice. But if you really want to get those dark shades, you need a lot of pigments. That it why bright, saturated colors were a sign of wealth in the Middle Ages, whereas the poorer people's stuff got into dye vats after the richer people's garments had been treated. That resulted in more pastel colours. Some colors were more difficult to obtain than others, among them bright blue (indigo), bright red (cochenille lice) or a rich tint of black. It is possible to achieve with iron dying and oak, I believe. Also saw a documentary on kimono silk dyes where the water in the area was so full of the earth's pigments that you could simply wash it in that water and it would become grey. - Now back to my theatre project where the main actress tried on the chemise and mock corset yesterday, and the project leader said she would need to think about something to wear underneath to feel comfortable on stage, suggesting leggings. To an 1840's outfit. Yikes.
Embroidery is a very interesting topic to me. I think there should exist a series that would cover many traditional embroidery and what they mean. This topic is actually fascinating, though some may find it boring. I remember once watching a documentary about English royal family and their wedding dresses, they had a bunch of symbolic embroidery. So I never had a question about GoT's wedding dresses. I think such tradition exists among many cultures.
I’m starting my study’s in undergrad costume production and this is by far the most useful resource I’ve come across so far!! Please do more of these!!!
OMG, THAT was just scratching the surface?????? I am overwhelmed, impressed, and delighted. I concur with other commenters asking for more. Your excitement is infectious.
What an amazing depth and level of observation you possess. So many things that only a person that has such a vast knowledge of clothing can notice and give the reason for their existence. Above all, you evidently know the series very well. I cannot even imagine the amount of time it took you to make this video full of so many details about both the series and clothing, including particulars about materials and constructions. Brava.
Amusing timing, just last night I was trying to pin down the dress style for a fantasy world I may or may not set a webcomic in. (Or at least the feminine silhouette.)
Don't know if anyone else has mentioned this, but re: the Night's Watch, in the opening chapter of the first book when the three men are going beyond the Wall their clothing is very explicitly described to illustrate the class difference between them. The leader (Waymar Royce, I think?) comes from a noble family and while his clothing is obviously all black, he's wearing the *best* black clothes his rich family could afford: a fur cloak, very rich, thick wools, high-quality leather, etc, and all of it newly made for him. The other two men were commoners and thus either dyed their own clothes or, more likely, were just given Watch hand-me-downs. You can see the difference in their clothing, and thus status, from literally the opening shot of the show, and you can see the difference throughout the Night Watch. All the men of important positions there 1) tend to be from noble families (though not all!), and 2) have noticeably nicer clothing. Daenerys' story is full of class commentary via clothing descriptions as well. One of the slaver cities she visits has some absolutely ludicrous garment worn by the upper class- some kind of loose, draping toga that requires you to constantly hold up part of it, meaning you don't even have use of both your arms- which is just a huge flex to show how much labor these people never have to do. If memory serves, it also restricts movement so they can't even walk quickly, which of course means they're carried everywhere in litters. Daenerys very quickly sees herself from their eyes: dusty, over-sunned, in horse-riding leathers, and immediately adapts their fashion to properly convey her class status. Also! The scene where she tries to give her brother some new clothes! She gets him the best leathers she can because his nice silk clothes are ruined from constant riding, and this *infuriates* him. Even his ripped and filthy silks are preferable to "horse clothes" because of the status they convey (Or what he thinks they convey, which of course makes him look like an utter buffoon to the Dothraki). Also it's not clothing-based, but when Cersei gets her shame haircut and subsequently keeps a pixie cut, you can see characters in the background who do the same (notably one of her maids). Influencer status: cemented.
this kind of work seems more related to social studies than fashion. it's really fascinating, because it requires a lot of study and consideration, specially with a world that does not exist, so you don't have references for it. i think they truly embodied the energy the books bring, and surely the source material was a huge help figuring out the details
Ned’s leather vest armor doesn’t appear to be the same to me as one is V-necked with a crossover lapel and the other isn’t. But aside from that wow. The amount or research you did for this is impressive. It’s like a thesis paper. So enlightening. Thank you so much for sharing. I knew they had done a brilliant job of costuming, but hadn’t really even thought of the materials available in each area or class structure into it on the level which it clearly did. I was riveted. Thank you!!
Amazing! I've watched the series numerous times, but the next time will be so much more enjoyable after watching this! As someone who has worked as a seamstress in a costume shop, your videos are not just informative and entertaining, but logical. Thank you for sharing your knowledge in such an interesting manner. 😊
In your section where northern practicality yields to ornament- it's true even in the books. All of their clothing and armor is described as much more simply decorated than the clothing of the southern kingdoms, especially in direct contrast to the Lannisters.
Thank you for articulating and then supporting said articulation with such an amazing deep-dive on GOT. Short story: some years ago during a long road trip (22 hours trapped in a car over 2 days), a close friend and I ended putting our to use by coming with a sci-fi fantasy setting of our own. With myself being an armourer and my friend being an architectural designer, came up with 5 different factions, all with their own culture, housing styles and fashion. The starting questions for each faction were basically, what is their main lifestyle, what is their environment, what type of material do they have access to. We naturally found that material availability was the main defining factor for the look and feel of faction. As you touched upon early in your video, such concerns don't matter as much in a globalised and post-industrial planet however it would make sense to picture that provisioning of materials on other planets would most likely completely alter what type of structures, clothing and weapons humanity would build in the future. You're as skilled at weaving words into documentaries as you are with stitching. Keep up the great work.
Thanks to you I've now started to critically evaluate the costumes in every vaguely historical tv show and film I watch for historical accuracy, even the fantasy and sci-fi ones. And I'm not even into fashion nor can I sew to save my life. Thanks so much Bernadette!
I can’t believe I just watched this. I have no interest in fashion or dress, yet the presenter managed convey her enthusiasm and constructed a well thought through, and intelligent video essay.
This was so interesting! Would love to see this sort of breakdown for other fictional properties. I get that there probably aren't a lot of properties with this intricate of world building to cover, but LOTR or Star Wars come to mind.
I love these types of videos as someone trying to design realistic (or semi realistic) fantasy clothes for an *alien* planet that is a bit medieval inspired! so much worldbuilding to do just to explain why the main character wears a long sleeveless coat thing and what it's made of haha, but I'm always happy to make my fictional universe more detailed and complex.
Hey Bernadette- would love to see you do an essay on speculative/science fiction. Although the contexts are wildly different, the principles of costuming for scifi are identical to those of fantasy and, as you point out here, a lot of putatively historical fiction. Could you give examples of scifi you consider well-costumed, or show us how you would do it for either a well-known scifi property or one of your own invention?
Watching this video was a huge flood of dopamine right to my soul. So many little parts of my special interests got snagged through the course of this and I adored every second
this was so fun to watch! while I had some issues with got and how they treated the characters writing wise, the world building and all these costuming details are so mind blowing! and I love Bernadette just casually making this presentation with a sword lmao
Such a wonderful teaching video. You really have such an enthusiasm and depth of knowledge on clothing/fashion that watching you makes me want to learn more. Just like an astronomer and geologist I follow have taught me so much. And please someday when you have time can you put a blooper reel out from this!
It made all the difference. It’s what nagging my unconscious mind in other shows. And sometimes it becomes so extreme you end up feeling it’s completely fake. Realty in fantasy is important to make it believable.
Best ad ever at the end 😂. Too funny. Great video too, just couldn’t help but giggle at the alternative to “soaking up the summer sun” they wanted her to say 😂🤣😂. Love it 🥰
It should be noted that canonically in Bravos bright colors are a mark of the poor and low status individuals, while the rich prefer darker muted tones. It is a major trading port with easy access to many exotic dyes, but their culture associates the upper classes with the more austere look that may have come from the city's founders having been escaped slaves. The nobles in Bravos should be wearing grey or even black. An ordinary Bravosi wearing black would be breaking sumptuary laws.
Another personal characteristic of dressing is seen in Lady Margaery Tyrell’s iconic dress that leaves her back bare. Sansa even points it out in the books when other courtiers start wearing more revealing clothes as the Tyrells arrive in King’s Landing.
I don't care much for Game of Thrones, but I love this quote: 'Historical accuracy, whatever that elusive concept is, ultimately really is just logic.' 👍
Wow, I have never watched a movie in this way! Your intake on this series is so interesting and informative, it's just something I've never thought about and I loved it!
I loved this video! The intricacy of the dress is so subtle when I'm just casually watching, i kept imagining the team of got finding this video and watching you fangirl 🥰🥰😊😆love it!! also: i love your ads!!! You're soo good at making them funny and #relatable
not just a sword... she used it for her Mic! why use a mic stand or pin it so boringly to one's collar like any other plebeian... no no No, attach it to the Blade of your Sword, that is the thing you Must do!
A point on Shay's dress as well, could it be that the looser cut not only conserves fabric but also theoretically means that the dress could be given to another woman if Shay ever fell out of favour? A complex, tailored garment is much harder to repurpose for someone else than a garment which is essentially a strip of cloth shaped with gathers and belts, and since the Lannisters seem to treat prostitutes (and probably servants in general) as disposable, it would make sense that they would not want something made for her and her alone.
I also thought it could be a little nod to the looser styles of Essos since Shae is from Lorath(?) (Idk I just know it’s one of the Free Cities that she’s from🤷♀️) I feel like her very loose flowy dress with the belt and that “halter-style” neckline really resembles the white dress that Dany wears when she meets with Razdan Mo Eraz of Yunkai (and later the blue version Missandei wears in Meereen) as well as Dany’s early season 1 outfits when she’s in Illyrio’s Manse in Pentos. Just a thought 🤷♀️
@@nevaehaho61 if you watch the scene where Sansa gets her period, the random servant that comes in is wearing the same type of dress as Shae, except there's no belt. So it probably is a uniform but servants are given some leeway in how they wear it (unless it's a seniority thing since Shae is a lady's maid and the other's an ordinary maid)
@@ru1634 ooh you’re right lol. I mean King’s Landing is also pretty hot apparently, since it’s like in the middle of everything and it’s summer when we start the main story. Maybe the style could be from Essos since KL is right in the center of all this commerce and the Essosi styles seem more practical at least in terms of climate, or it could definitely just be their uniform and Shae just threw a belt on cause it’s not as shapeless that way or something 🤷♀️
I wonder if the Bravosi tendency to emphasis the neck has something to do with the city being founded by escaped slaves. The founders would have had scars on their necks from the collars they had to wear when Valayrian slave. Either they wanted to cover the scars or they wanted to show they now they can wear what they wish around their necks.
i had noticed the dyes and colors getting more muted as the show went on - it never occurred to me that this was a realistic representation of the disruption of trade and commerce. I always just thought it was an aesthetic choice by show's makers as a "eh look, it's dark and gritty now"
I think it might have something to do with the filters used: winter is coming and the war is raging, so the whole look of the series became darker and more sombre in contrast to the first seasons' summer feel - but yes, it does have the added advantage of looking like there are literally less shades available on the Westeros markets :-)
The thing is that surely the trope of "eh look, it's dark and gritty now" especially during times of war, became that trope largely due to disruptions in trade and commerce during said times.
It may well have been both reasons. The costumers were clearly working hard and putting out high quality art & craftsmanship throughout all the seasons, so they probably made decisions that made sense in the ASOIAF universe, within the constraints & directives of the production higher-ups.
Definitely both are true! As we know Bernadette isn’t concerned with symbolism in costuming, but it’s absolutely something that is worked into every level of design in filmmaking, props, costumes, set design and set dressing etc etc
the thing with the neck ruffs in Bravos could be a legacy of them never being a slave city, but founded by run-away slaves. The style a legacy from a time when deliberate attention was drawn to their origin as a people who previously had to wear a metal collar but where many now can afford to wears the most expensive cloth collars stitched in elaborate patterns instead...
another thing about Braavos fashion, is the reversed class dynamic where important officials wear plain dark clothing while everyday citizens are vibrant and diverse. Samwell even gets confused for a rich person because of his Night's Watch gear.
Fun fact, when I was an undergraduate I was in a filmmaking society, and one night there was a talk by one of the costume assistants who worked with Michelle on GoT. She gave away some interesting facts about GoT that made it different from other historically-based shows at the time (I think she used Camelot as an example). She said in GoT they would put all the clothes in washing machines with some dirt to make them rougher/look more worn in, as opposed to pristinely/freshly made outfits. She also said a lot of the wolf pelts the people in Winterfall were Ikea rugs :D
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl yes but if dirt got on them it would have been more difficult to clean, especially for poorer people and people out adventuring or whatever.
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl That time? What time? Westeros isn't a real place, its got magic and dragons and isn't based on historical accuracy of any kind. Its High Fantasy.
This was fantastic. Makes me miss the old seasons of GOT before they got lazy, the passion you put into it mirrors so well the passion those first seasons had.
What happened to Game of Thrones is almost tragic. It went from being one of the most prominent pieces of pop culture to something literally everyone wants to forget about because THAT'S how horribly it ended.
That was mostly (completely) due to the fact that George branched off to write novels and left the screen plays to the real villains of the show. Not only did they kill the beautiful world and people he created, they did a great disservice to all those cast and crew members that put so much heart and soul into the production.
Season 1 GoT: Hand stitches costumes among many minor details that most people will never acknowledge to immerse the audience into a fantasy world. Season 8 GoT: Starbucks cup, plastic water bottle, and a night battle scene so badly produced and directed most people only remember black screens.
In case you haven't checked it out, the embroideress for GoT was Michelle Carragher. She has an online portfolio and it's disgusting how beautiful everything is! Insanely talented woman.
@@LuvLee296 no, actually not. Michelle Clapton is the Costume designer, The embroideress is Michelle Carragher. Easy mistake to make, tho. The Michelles were often confused.
I have seen my fair share of "historically accurate costume design" video essays but I don't think any of them have started with 'material accessibility' and moved forward from there. Someone is either an anthropology nerd or knows someone who is and I LOVE it.
I might be wrong, but it sounds like you're pretty new to Bernadette's channel. She's a fashion historian, specifically focused on the period between about 1400 to 2000, and mostly in western Europe and America.
When you mentioned how colored dyes were less in use in Kings Landing by the end of the series it made me realize how easy it is to forget that there were so many talented people who put their all into seasons 8-7. So many great actors, set designers, costum designers, directors, and even musicians making the score put their absolute all into the final 2 seasons and it can be hard to notice that over the dogshit writing.
One thing I also remember is that a lot of the earlier Sansa and Dany costumes in particular were not only repeated, but gradually get more embroidered/repurposed - in Sansa's case, showing that she still adds embellishments to her own clothes, perhaps as a way to cope while a prisoner in King's Landing. And Dany's getting more elaborate as she gained power and wealth, and presumably, more servants with the time to do such work. Awesome video!
I think it was the first episode where we see Sansa being all proud about her needlework/stitching, one can only assume with Arya complaining about her “perfect” older sister that Sansa was adept in sewing as well. That being said, Ive seen a lot of people taking notice when she looses favor with the king (the Lannisters in general) that her clothing is more tight over her chest, meaning she continued to grow but the Lannisters refused to allow her more fabric to sew a new dress or to just adjust it so it would fit her. It’s such a fantastic way of telling a whole story with just too small clothing. TBH my heart broke when I realized this when watching the show - after first thinking it was wardrobe malfunction but then realized it was intentional to show us this aspect of the petty Lannisters. Costume, as well as music and set designs were on fire the whole series through, no matter how shitty the writing got.
The costume designers described that throughout the early seasons as Daenerys got more in touch with her dragon nature, the scale embroidery was more and more pronounced.
"Black dyes of the North" reminded me one story about reenactors. My friends told me about one group that tried reconstruct this deeply black woolen garment from early middle ages, north of europe. Nothing worked, no black dye accesible so far north was working, and the garment was not worn by a noble, so dye bought from south was not an reasonable option either. Then. Then it struck them. Some sheep are already black... So, breeding black sheep for black wool would be my theory for Nights watch, it even works better with those pieces of fur they wear around their shoulders. It would be so much work to dye this all black, a time these watchers dont have... Also, great video and lookin' forward to another!
It's been a while since I last read the books, but I think I recall that the Night's Watch did dye the clothes that the men came with. Love the point about the black sheep though!
Don't forget Black bears as used for the hats of royalty guards in England and Denmark (extremely rare handed down large uniform hats made from no longer obtainable fur).
Cool (insert weather joke here) that never would have occurred to me, and black wool is less commercially desirable IRL because it tends to be coarser and cant be dyed - so it would theoretically be cheaper for the watch to obtain, while those fancy/daft southerners are busy throwing money away on dyed wool, tut! (I'm a Londoner I'm allowed to mock us soft bastards 😜) And black sheep would be much less likely to be lost in the snow/landscape, as well as being a cheap and sustainable source for wool - and food once they age out.
For the "fashion armor" Cersei wore in the later seasons, I saw it as a representation of her growing paranoia. She had to still conform to the expected royal look but if an assassin rushed in and tried to attack her in the middle of court or during a walk through the gardens, she would have at least slightly more protection than if she were wearing nothing. Yes, it's not very useful in battle. But she's not planning on going into battle. She's planning on a surprise knife to the chest.
It also reminded me of the more military style Polish doublets that Elizabeth I favored as war loomed and as the Little Ice Age began, just as Winter is Coming to even King's Landing.
I would have loved to have seen little rivets showing that she actually had something akin to brigandine beneath her dress, maybe not with padding, but to stop a knife in her torso.
One thing that I don't see enough of is hand-me-downs! I remember how my aunt would send these huge boxes every year, full of clothes that my cousin had grown out of. Those same clothes then went on to be given to my little sister when she got big enough. And even now that my sister is guaranteed to be the youngest for a while longer, my family never gets rid of clothes unless they're irreparably damaged, like stains or holes. I want more shows where younger family members wear something that their older family members wore seasons before! Have kids wear clothes that are decades out of style! Have the print on them be faded and worn!
Yes!! There was *almost* one between Sansa and Catelyn--there is a damask gown that seems to have the same figuring, only Sansa is seen in hers before Catelyn, and Catelyn's (which she wears only in the Tully funeral scene) is a few shades darker. So hand-me-down fabric perhaps, but I was gutted that they didn't go the full hand-me-down garment route!
@@bernadettebanner I wish there were more examples of weight change. It’s seen in king Baratheon and implied with Cercei on and off but would love more of that.
There's a passage in the books that could've been a nice opportunity to showcase this, when Arya is traveling the Riverlands and gets put on a dress by Lady Smallwood in Accorn Hall (presumably one of the lady's old dresses), this never happened on the show of course, but Arya wears dresses when she's traveling with the brotherhood, at least both in Accorn Hall and at the Peach, she dislikes it, possibly because she's a child who was surrounded only by boys at that point and made fun of for being a highborn lady, and not because she hated dresses and girly things. Here's the Accorn Hall scene between her and Gendry (who are both pre-teens on the books), if anyone's curious: “You look different now. Like a proper little girl.” “I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.” “Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.” “You don’t. You stink.” Arya shoved him back against the anvil and made to run, but Gendry caught her arm. She stuck a foot between his legs and tripped him, but he yanked her down with him, and they rolled across the floor of the smithy. He was very strong, but she was quicker. Every time he tried to hold her still she wriggled free and punched him. Gendry only laughed at the blows, which made her mad. He finally caught both her wrists in one hand and started to tickle her with the other, so Arya slammed her knee between his legs, and wrenched free. Both of them were covered in dirt, and one sleeve was torn on her stupid acorn dress. “I bet I don’t look so nice now,” she shouted.
A few details I love is that Sansa's neglect as a prisoner is shown in most of her clothes not quite fitting between the time of Ned's arrest and her marriage to tyrion. Also you can catch missande wearing hand me downs from danarys in later seasons
AMAZING video!! So you briefly touched on it, but Sansa's coronation dress is STACKED with symbolism, and also so much stunning craftspersonship that we NEVER even see on screen!! I've spent the past 3 years hand crafting a 1:1 replica for a cosplay and I can tell you whew, it was a lot of work. I'd like to think that Sansa made it herself, like she does a lot of her other outfits. The outfit has Sansa essentially just paying homage to the important people in her journey to become Queen in the North. The dress fabric is the same fabric (just a different colour) that was used for Margaery's wedding dress (do not recommend. Beautiful fabric, nightmare to work with. Frays like a bitch). The one sided sleeved shawl is a reference to Aryas later season cape. Theres an embroidered 3d wolf head on the other side, with the black feathered cape (Bran, being the Raven), that blends into the back half with some stunning 3d velvet scales with goldwork and metal wire and fur, representing the scaled fur look of the Stark wolf sigil. This then blends into beaded fish scales that continue down the outer side of the sleeve, representing her mother's Tully house. This fur mantle shape is similar to Jon's and her Fathers. Her dress cut is similar to some of Dany's. The metal spike hanging from the breastplate is worn in the same fashion Littlefinger wears his dagger. And her crown matches both cersei's, but also the wolf pins that Robb wears. And then that's not to mention the just stunning Weirwood leaves, and Weirwood branch steel breastplate. And some of the other unseen details include some TINY stumpwork and goldwork wolf heads on the dress sleeve cuffs, which also are buttoned with the tiniest bronze acorn charms, with there being the same number of buttons as stark children. This whole costume is a stunning piece of art, and you can really see how not only was it Sansa's in-world homage to her journey and the people that influenced her, but also the costume team's homage and goodbye to the work they had completed over the decade.
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One of things that I really like about the Starks costumes is the lack of metal in the early seasons. In a interview, one of the costumers explained that the details around Sansa’s collars (embroidery and knotting) are to compensate for no metal necklaces or jewellery- because it would be horrendous to have naked metal against your skin in subzero temperatures. It’s such a nice touch.
That's an interesting perspective, but I have my doubts; I wonder what the Vikings would have said to that!
@@Fledhyris Well, we’ll never know. Still I think the logic makes sense.
We know that scarves, mittens/gloves and cloaks were all relatively common which would hide rings and necklaces in the winter months. Maybe their clothes were worm enough to protect them, or maybe they only wore the jewellery on warmer days. It could perhaps explain why we find so many really ornate cloak pins which wouldn’t be hidden under layers of clothes.
@@Fledhyris Vikings were super into jewellery that was pinned to clothing; brooches, pins and other fastenings. Also the climate in Scandinavia could be pretty mild especially in coastal areas - all of Scandinavia wasn’t a frigid, year-round wintery landscape (even parts of Greenland, that was settled by vikings, was considerably milder, than it is today - there is a reason they named it as such).
@@BexMatthies The reason "they" named it such was that the guy who wanted people to go settle there needed to market it somehow.
@@BexMatthies Exactly! Same for Winterfell! I mean it makes sense not to wear metal jewellery against your skin if you're working or fighting in the snow, but nobody does that anyway - jewellery is for wearing at court or at home, when you have fires lit and it's just not that cold.
A coronation dress is an example of a dress where symbolism would _absolutely_ be consciously used, because it’s already such a symbolic occasion.
Yes! I was also thinking of the wedding gowns of Elizabeth, Kate, and Megan. Those were ALL about the symbolism, in fabric and embellishments.
@@KristenK78
Queen Elizabeth I of England combined the two highly symbolic occasions by deliberately appearing bridal at her coronation.
Definitely. Queen Elizabeth II's coronation gown had embroidery depicting all the floral emblems of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Nations. Queen Elizabeth was not the only one to use symbolism in her coronation gown. Queen Mary and Queen Mother's dresses also had a similar idea.
It is highly likely that Sansa would take the opportunity to use soft power tactics and think carefully what her coronation gown would indicate to her people.
I noticed that at the last US presidential inauguration, Jill Biden wore a coat with all the state/territory flowers embroidered on it. Perfect moment for symbolism.
IIRC the weddings also involved exchanging elaborate coats with house sigils, or at least the groom coating the bride in theirs. So yes, house symbolism on the clothes is very fitting - and generally used a lot by members of the top houses, also on weapons like Longclaw or Dawn.
The one thng I loved reading about was the fact that when Margaery Tyrell comes to King's Landing a lot of the nobles and courtiers are dressed similarly to Cersei, both hair and dresses. And as Margaery starts to gain power and is enroute to become the queen ladies of the court start dressing more and more like her. It's really fascinating!
I think it’s interesting because it also means that Cersei is losing her power because people are paying less attention to Cersei. Ladies are starting to figuratively ally themselves with Margaery by following her style.
This happened in real history; when Anne Boleyn was in favor, the women of the court wore French hoods and less-modest clothing. When Jane Seymour overtook her in Henry's favor (even though Anne was his wife and the Queen), the women immediately copied Jane's gabled hood and more modest clothing.
And when the faith millitant is getting stronger. All women including margaery were starting to wear less revealing clothing. They cover their shoulder, neck, and cleavage.
I’d dress like her too if I had the figure for it.
It's actually a historical political thing as well. This is more early medieval, but during the conflict between the Romans(Byzantines), and the Germans(Charlemagne's family and co.) over the Lombards, each time the Lombards changed their overlord they wore their style of clothing and cut their hair and facial hair accordingly.
When it comes to repeating outfits, one of my favorite details is that Margaery's handmaidens will wear dresses that she has worn previously; meaning she either shares with them or gives dresses to them when she is done with them. Sometimes they will add a scarf to change it up a bit, but you can still recognize them.
I did not notice that, I just thought they had similar style of dress, keen eye Kaz Q.!
The Queen of England had outfits altered over the years, but documentaries also say that if she is no longer going to wear something and not altering it, then she offered it to her ladies in waiting, but that tags had to be removed and the ladies were to change them enough that they would not be instantly recognized as wearing the Queen's clothes. Recycling, good to be thrifty.
How did you even notice that?? That’s such a cool detail
It's canonical too, in the books she was known for being kind to her handmaids, remember handmaids in this world tend to be young ladies from minor houses, even Sansa isn't very nice to hear handmaids until she meets Shae
I think Sansa wasn’t kind to her handmaids because they were hired by Cersei and were presumably spying on her
A nice part of one of Sansa’s dresses seems to be that she’s outgrown it- it is too tight along the sleeves and the back, and she has not the time or resources to make herself a new dress or to have a new dress made for herself (cersei is her guardian at this time and Cersei isn’t very nice)
This is a really small thing, but I absolutely love Sansa's costume in the line up- specifically because, from a lore perspective, it would make 100% sense that it is a hand-me-down from her mother. Sansa is the outlier in that scene, being in a very pale blue. If it was a common dye then we would see other northerners wearing similar- but we don't, it's only her. It also looks to be much lighter than everyone else's clothes.
We might not see anything similar in the north, but look at the Riverlands and the Vale- we see similar colors everywhere. Catelyn is from the Riverlands, and it looks like mother and (eldest) daughter are the same height and general build- meaning it could very well be a dress Catelyn brought with her to the North after her wedding, and then put away somewhere when she realized it was impractical, so it never got much wear- making it perfect to give to Sansa for when the King and family are visiting- an occasion that mandates exquisite dress, especially for a daughter coming up to marriage age.
Yes I agree with you! It makes a lot of sense, especially considering that Sansa at that point is yearning for the south as she perceives it as the setting of most of the songs. Catelyn’s dress probably appealed to Sansa as a way to seem more Southron and thus more like the ladies in the songs
This makes perfect sense, given how Sansa takes after her mother physically, and even tries to mirror her personality and behaviour early on.
Sansa's actual character is probably more like Ned though; gentle, idealistic and quite naive. As she becomes disillusioned with her previous fantasies of the south, and yearns for Winterfell, she starts adapting more Stark clothing and specifically ones that are similar to what Ned and Robb wore.
@@stoneheart8231 I haven't yet searched to see if it's mentioned in another video, but I can't believe we didn't see Sansa's "raven" dress that she made in the Vale.
Good catch!
I think we all got so wrapped up in how bad the writing was getting that we forgot how great and hardworking everyone in every other aspect of the show was. This is a great example of exactly that. The costuming is clearly spectacular.
I was thinking the same thing. It's a shame I can't stand so much of the plot because I LOVE all the intricate details, and videos like these make me think "hey maybe you should give it another try". (Of course the double-edged sword of all the detail is that I had a *very* hard time keeping track of some things, and pretty much anything that was mildly subtle got lost to me unless someone pointed it out to me. I just plain don't have the brain for GRRM).
IMO, poor ending writing or not, it's still possibly the best-acted TV series I've ever watched, too. The scripts and film time might have fallen apart toward the end, but everyone else involved gave their best.
@John Kult I was with you on the first line then you lost me more and more as you went on.
The thing that actually still angers me about GoT is all the hard work of the crew and production being wasted by two lazy writers.
Exactly! The embroidery in the final seasons WERE AMAZING, the wigs were amazing (yet Dany's were kind of
unrealistic at some time, but I think it was on purpose), that damn white coat of Dany... the examples can go on and on.
I was really impressed how martin dealt with the topic of shoes. The two kids that travel with arya and joren to the nights watch were loured in by the promise of shoes and food for example. And when a soldier dies bronn is described of taking his shoes because they were of finer leather. Same is seen when one of the dead kills ser jeffrey on the wall: another man of the nights wach takes all of his clothing.
In an era where the vast majority of people were walking literally everywhere I would imagine you’d be fixated on having good shoes. I’ve worked jobs where I’ve been on my feet all day in cheap shoes and all you can think about by the end of the day is how much your feet hurt. Living in that era I can absolutely understand why you’d be tempted to stab someone for their nice boots.
even though i didnt really watch the series in entirety i attribute a lot of the points that bernadette talked about to martin's insane attention to detail, he did really establish his world in a way that makes sense historically, and i do recall a lot of garments being described with their cultural (or symbolic) significance. and ofcourse it seems like the design team made an absolute amazing job translating that to screen
A thing about the King's Guard. In the books they keep their own plate armour and their only identifying feature is the white cloak. Because even in as rich a city as King's Landing, the thought of uniform plate armour is kind of ridiculous. The idea with the white cloak is that they have no crest or banner, no family, no alliance other than to the king. It mirrors the Night's Watch, who also have no duty other than to the wall. Their crest is therefore black and empty. It is canon in the books that new recruits just get everything dyed, because it's the most practical, whereas recruits from noble houses mostly already come with a full set of black clothes. You can see that in the very first scene of S1E1 between the three Watchmen. The social structure stays the same even in the supposed egalitarian Night's Watch.
okay I know that in reality uniform plate armour is ridiculously expensive, but I have yet to be shown a method of dying black that isn't ruinous to an already malfunded organisation.
@@julecaesara482
Not really m it was mass produced
@@julecaesara482 well charcoal would actually darken your clothing a lot, and I dont even want to consider how much fire they need at the wall to stay warm. so a charcoal would be available for dyeing clothing. It is ofcourse a bad pigment to dye with but the enormous excess of charcoal may lend to redying as part of the washing process.
Iron nails+acid make mordant solution and bark of tree with lots of tannins like oaks make dark coloured clothing easy and cheap. Also thay could kept black coloured sheeps for wool, milk and meet.
If I recall from the books, the other thing about the cloaks is that it immediately distinguishes them from the other soldiers & guards in kings landing. Maybe a completely impractical waste of textile but it does signify they are the king’s hand-picked guard and possibly deserve a little more respect. At least that’s how they would see it. I’m sure the people of Flea Bottom couldn’t care less
Sansa’s costume story melds so well with her character story. She wears clothing as armor and the detail that went into it is so cool to study.
I also loved that Sansa was shown sewing her transformation gown while ensconced in The Reach.
These are the types of videos I want when I type 'how to create a fantasy world' I want the almost impossible to notice details, talked about by the people that are actually going to notice them.
Please make more videos like this.
You might actually be able to find this type of information in more anthropological studies/content/whatever! A lot of what Bernadette touched on is based on/related to research done in cultural anthropology
@@milazandstra8067 thanks
On the cultural aspects, the slaver garment in the books (which has a name I can't remember) requires that the wearer constantly hold the garment together. Making it very clear that whoever wears it doesn't have to do any manual labour.
I think it was pretty much just the Roman toga, made more ornate (the Carthaginian fringe ) and worn by all the nobles, not just adult males. The culture of Slavers Bay was a cross between Rome and Carthage.
Wasn’t it called a tokar? Or am I misremembering
Yes, the Tokar is a traditional Slaver’s Bay style garment worn by only the nobility as it is INCREDIBLY impractical. It’s basically just a big sheet of very expensive fabric that you have to wrap around yourself in a very specific way (around the hips, under an arm, then forwards over the shoulder) and hold in place with your left hand. It’s said that if the Tokar is wrapped too tight, it might tangle and you could trip, and if it’s wound too loose, it could very easily just fall off of you (so very reasonable why this was not adopted for the show lol). In one of Dany’s chapters, her Dothraki handmaidens (+Missandei presumably) have to wrap it around her three times until they get it right, and in another Dany comments on the fact that she has to make smaller strides when she walks when wearing a Tokar since it’s also quite a bit restrictive of movement. As for other garments the masters and nobility wear, very briefly in Book 5 (or Season 5) in the fighting pits scene (if you know, you know) Dany gets bored of sitting around in her Tokar and just takes it off along with some veils she was wearing, and it’s briefly stated that she was wearing some sort of under-tunic (since without it no doubt the crowd would be losing their minds that their queen just completely undressed in front of them cause she felt like it XD). The slavers also shape their hair (which is sometimes black and red and other times just one or the other in the books) into the shape of wings, horns, and even a unicorn horn in Astapor I believe, using oils, but Dany isn’t explicitly stated to have adopted this along with the Tokar. The Tokars are also decorated very richly with very expensive fringes to indicate the wearer’s status. For example, Dany has one with a fringe of baby pearls, one with Myrish lace, and more with gold and silver. Sorry this is super long, I’m just very enthusiastic about book-accurate ASOIAF fashions 😅
Edit: Holy cow, that’s a lotta likes 👀 Thanks! 🙏
@@nevaehaho61 no that was great I love the intricacies of the asoiaf books and am thrilled to see someone else with equal enthusiasm in the “wild”, I’m more obsessive over the religions, magic systems, and universe internal history.
@@nevaehaho61 don’t apologize, this was amazing to read and super I formative
I have a lovely friend from northeastern Scotland and she told me that the majority of the embroidery and lace work was done by the embroiderers in Aberdour, New Aberdour, and other parts of Aberdeenshire 😊
She is in her 70’s and was so excited to watch GOT for the embroidery…. She blushed when telling me about all the …um… intimate scenes! 😂
Bit like if you go a wee bit south you’ll find Dundee is the home of rigging and ropes, with all the jute fibre, linked so tightly with the port and all that sea trade. I love how certain places are associated with certain industries like that, like mascot materials (indeed there was a time when people would dress in costumes suited to each location to be like a mascot, such as the woman from Sheffield with all the steel)
This is an absolute master class on the importance of world building in fiction. You focused on the clothing, for reasons... but there's so much information here that could also be applied to architecture, food, or other cultural things. Excellent!!
i’m so glad we’ve circled back around to appreciating the GoT tv show again. the first 4 seasons are so amazing, they don’t deserve to be stunk up by the last four.
Yes!
Yeees! The first four seasons are so great. They've got their faults, sure, but it's some of the best TV I've ever seen. Then it all went to shit lol. But I still appreciate the first few seasons, they're just too good to dismiss.
Even the last four deserve consideration for all the work the artisans made to create the environments, as they had more budget for it. I loved Daenery's dragon coat and the emboideries made for house Martell dresses as well as rooms like the Stark Library
well, then I recommend never reading the books lol
Having attended Costume College in the past, this absolutely felt like one of its classes, and I am here for this! Not only did it go into the analysis of the show itself, but I totally learned about how to figure this kind of thing out for myself on other pieces of media in the future! I felt like I actually learned something that I can take with me instead of the normal picking at another show that I’ve seen in the past. Also, may I just say how refreshing it was that she considered this historically accurate, not because of how it compares to our world, but in the continuity of another? Because it’s easy to look at at TV, hold it up against the familiar, then complain when it doesn’t match; it’s much harder and yet so much better to go through the processes these things could develop through anywhere and use that instead.
I am a fabric artist and Game of Thrones is fascinating! Thank you! I would just like to mention that the costume designer is Michele Clapton and the embroidery is the work of Michele Carragher. I would have loved to work on this amazing project!
The costumers doing everything possible to make the clothes make sense. ***the writers have exited the chat***
Daenerys white coat is the most beautiful think I've ever seen...she was a vision wearing it 😭💗
This is the mind-blowing attention to detail that I love... thank you for nerding out on this. FANTASTIC job.
Would love to see something similar on LOTR. I loved their costumes and the designer Ngila Dickson took a lot of care about them. Even it hobbit movies, with different designer, among the dwarves they have different colours and fabrics to symbolise different areas they came from.
I found the fictional historically accurate Pillars of the Earth trilogy quite fascinating also
"Culturally consistent" might have been a more accurate description. Thank you for this gem of an analysis. It is details like these that can either break or sustain immersion. Most viewers may not pay attention to them consciously, but they will definitely feel it when something is off.
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on the costuming of the upcoming House of the Dragon show when it airs. It's set during the height of the Targaryen dynasty and you can definitely see the wealth and decadence in the costuming already just from the trailers and promotional photos. Season 1 will also span a couple of decades with multiple time skips, hopefully that will be apparent in the costuming. They seem to be taking a more "historically inspired" approach in the design than the original show where it was more pure fantasy. So far I'm really impressed with it.
There are some few people on YT that I can watch and re-watch, and you're at the top of that list. Erudite, energetic, entertaining, with diction and enunciation to die for!
I was *going* to say I fell in love with ASOIAF when I read Sansa thinking about how Northern women don't have the money to waste on jewelry, and that staying warm was more important, and they take pride in their embroidery and sewing skills instead, and now, and because nothing can be that easy, I can't actually find that passage.
About halfway through the video and just noticed the image in the bottom left corner of the collage board behind Bernadette with the Cool Shades. Excellent 😂
Barnadette + Game of Thones... how could this be more perfect ? I love how you walked us through all this with such passion in your voice... very interesting and we learned a lot
I can’t wait to see the costumes in House of the Dragon considering the incredible world the costume designers of GoT created. I have high expectations
I positively loved how analytic and technical clothing, fashion, and costume can truly become when approached with passion and inquiry such as by you! thrilling video
First things first, I've loved this video because it combines so many things I'm passionate about.
What you have been explaining is called internal logic or cohesion in writting and worldbuilding, and that's exactly what Michele Clapton did when designing Game of Thrones's costumes.
Second, if anyone would like to go deeper into the costuming of GOT the channel costume co in youtube has at least a dozen of videos worth of content.
If you on the other hand would like to know how to construct a realistic clothed world, I cannot recommend enough Maria Pattie's worldbuilding channel, where she has at least five videos dedicated to the subject.
A thought I had about the dress Shae is given being less tailored is that not only is it less wasteful of fabric in its construction, it's less wasteful of fabric in its specificity. A loose dress that is cinched tight around the form with adjustable belts and such is a dress that can be given to a guest to wear and then kept by its actual owner for later guests. I might even go so far as to say that such a dress could be intentional as a reminder that the wearer is not irreplaceable to their patron.
About outfit repeating - the first time I remember noticing this was in the MASH TV show. The characters are all living in an army hospital far away from home and have only brought a few items of clothing with them. Hawkeye's blue Hawaiian shirt, Mulcahy's grey Loyola sweater, BJ's yellow kimono-style shirt are items you see over and over and over again. It's really charming and grounds them in their location.
I need more of this, this video was so good. Great work as always
I truly love the nerding out about historical clothing and costume logic. Fantastic! I wonder.. I know historybounding is a thing, is fantasybounding a thing too? Because I certainly wouldn't mind some clothing inspired by GoT. Those lovely loose dresses for summer, and the thick tailored wools for winter that have a very distinct medieval flavour. Just lovely!
As soon as I can move more than one of my four limbs, I might have a think about how to design something that works...
Fantasy bounding is certainly a trend; any comic con,Renn faire, over even a theme park are filled with examples. Why not take it further: my husband who was a lawyer would wear a chainmail tie when a legal battle seemed imminent.
I always assumed Winterfell favoured raising black sheep and goats, not just to provide their Guard with woolens to match their dark brown and black pelts and furs without the need to waste resources on dyes (few of which would thrive in their climate anyways), and for whatever cultural reasons, but also because getting black from dyeing is really tricky and quite expensive (assuming their world has dyes similar to our world), so good colour-fast black wool can be one of the few exports Winterfell can compete with in the other kingdoms and rely on for trade. I imagine Winterfell guards its flocks quite jealously and forbids their sale live (to maintain their monopoly), but also imposes a total ban on importing goats and sheep to protect the purity of those flocks and ensure they retain the precious quality of their fleece.
The rewatch-ability of this video is crazy. I think I've watched it 10 times already. Just so satisfyingly well organized and intriguing.
Just knowing that a successful serie put actual thought in their designs makes my day better.
Everyone but the show runners 💯% gave a sh*t, & put so much effort into each of their fields- every single one of them deserves praise for creating the unique & beautiful worlds we saw in S1-4 - & none of the blame for the story & character ruination of s5-8 - they really all did the best that they could, with what restrictions were forced on them.
The costume & prop people are **artists** & I will never *not* be impressed by their world-building skills. Watching the clip on Michelle Caragher’s processes was mind-blowing...
the quilting tends to be for a type of armour called a gambeson, usually between 18-30 layers of linen stacked.
Your commentary on confirming the quality of care and detail to this series makes me enjoy the series more. I am glad to see the producers took time to care about accuracy for costumes in such a made up story and land. Your ability to analyze costumes from a finished series really is a testament to your knowledge on costume design in history. You would be an amazing asset to a production team for historical movies and costume design.
Have you reviewed Crimson Peak? It has some really lovely costume designs in it. I’m rewatching it now and thought of your channel!
A beautiful lecture on nerding out in style! :) I've tried dyeing with natural substances, it's a fun practice. But if you really want to get those dark shades, you need a lot of pigments. That it why bright, saturated colors were a sign of wealth in the Middle Ages, whereas the poorer people's stuff got into dye vats after the richer people's garments had been treated. That resulted in more pastel colours. Some colors were more difficult to obtain than others, among them bright blue (indigo), bright red (cochenille lice) or a rich tint of black. It is possible to achieve with iron dying and oak, I believe. Also saw a documentary on kimono silk dyes where the water in the area was so full of the earth's pigments that you could simply wash it in that water and it would become grey. - Now back to my theatre project where the main actress tried on the chemise and mock corset yesterday, and the project leader said she would need to think about something to wear underneath to feel comfortable on stage, suggesting leggings. To an 1840's outfit. Yikes.
Embroidery is a very interesting topic to me. I think there should exist a series that would cover many traditional embroidery and what they mean. This topic is actually fascinating, though some may find it boring. I remember once watching a documentary about English royal family and their wedding dresses, they had a bunch of symbolic embroidery. So I never had a question about GoT's wedding dresses. I think such tradition exists among many cultures.
I’m starting my study’s in undergrad costume production and this is by far the most useful resource I’ve come across so far!! Please do more of these!!!
OMG, THAT was just scratching the surface?????? I am overwhelmed, impressed, and delighted. I concur with other commenters asking for more. Your excitement is infectious.
We need more of this type of analyzing costume design & historical fashion. It's so exiting and interesting!
What an amazing depth and level of observation you possess. So many things that only a person that has such a vast knowledge of clothing can notice and give the reason for their existence. Above all, you evidently know the series very well. I cannot even imagine the amount of time it took you to make this video full of so many details about both the series and clothing, including particulars about materials and constructions. Brava.
Amusing timing, just last night I was trying to pin down the dress style for a fantasy world I may or may not set a webcomic in.
(Or at least the feminine silhouette.)
Excited for the HOTD follow up. Hopefully. Please.
Don't know if anyone else has mentioned this, but re: the Night's Watch, in the opening chapter of the first book when the three men are going beyond the Wall their clothing is very explicitly described to illustrate the class difference between them. The leader (Waymar Royce, I think?) comes from a noble family and while his clothing is obviously all black, he's wearing the *best* black clothes his rich family could afford: a fur cloak, very rich, thick wools, high-quality leather, etc, and all of it newly made for him. The other two men were commoners and thus either dyed their own clothes or, more likely, were just given Watch hand-me-downs. You can see the difference in their clothing, and thus status, from literally the opening shot of the show, and you can see the difference throughout the Night Watch. All the men of important positions there 1) tend to be from noble families (though not all!), and 2) have noticeably nicer clothing.
Daenerys' story is full of class commentary via clothing descriptions as well. One of the slaver cities she visits has some absolutely ludicrous garment worn by the upper class- some kind of loose, draping toga that requires you to constantly hold up part of it, meaning you don't even have use of both your arms- which is just a huge flex to show how much labor these people never have to do. If memory serves, it also restricts movement so they can't even walk quickly, which of course means they're carried everywhere in litters. Daenerys very quickly sees herself from their eyes: dusty, over-sunned, in horse-riding leathers, and immediately adapts their fashion to properly convey her class status. Also! The scene where she tries to give her brother some new clothes! She gets him the best leathers she can because his nice silk clothes are ruined from constant riding, and this *infuriates* him. Even his ripped and filthy silks are preferable to "horse clothes" because of the status they convey (Or what he thinks they convey, which of course makes him look like an utter buffoon to the Dothraki).
Also it's not clothing-based, but when Cersei gets her shame haircut and subsequently keeps a pixie cut, you can see characters in the background who do the same (notably one of her maids). Influencer status: cemented.
this kind of work seems more related to social studies than fashion. it's really fascinating, because it requires a lot of study and consideration, specially with a world that does not exist, so you don't have references for it. i think they truly embodied the energy the books bring, and surely the source material was a huge help figuring out the details
I am absolutely mesmerized by these videos. I don't know why. I'm not into sewing or anything, but find them extremely interesting.
Ned’s leather vest armor doesn’t appear to be the same to me as one is V-necked with a crossover lapel and the other isn’t. But aside from that wow. The amount or research you did for this is impressive. It’s like a thesis paper. So enlightening. Thank you so much for sharing. I knew they had done a brilliant job of costuming, but hadn’t really even thought of the materials available in each area or class structure into it on the level which it clearly did. I was riveted. Thank you!!
Amazing! I've watched the series numerous times, but the next time will be so much more enjoyable after watching this! As someone who has worked as a seamstress in a costume shop, your videos are not just informative and entertaining, but logical. Thank you for sharing your knowledge in such an interesting manner. 😊
Enjoy your knowledgeable enthusiasm! Thank you.
In your section where northern practicality yields to ornament- it's true even in the books. All of their clothing and armor is described as much more simply decorated than the clothing of the southern kingdoms, especially in direct contrast to the Lannisters.
"A purple and black velvet doublet slashed with red"
Absolutely amazing masterclass. Thank you.
I love the sword microphone stand
Netflix made another animated movie called Sea Beast. I hear that they consulted with the game of thrones costume designer.
Thank you for articulating and then supporting said articulation with such an amazing deep-dive on GOT. Short story: some years ago during a long road trip (22 hours trapped in a car over 2 days), a close friend and I ended putting our to use by coming with a sci-fi fantasy setting of our own. With myself being an armourer and my friend being an architectural designer, came up with 5 different factions, all with their own culture, housing styles and fashion. The starting questions for each faction were basically, what is their main lifestyle, what is their environment, what type of material do they have access to. We naturally found that material availability was the main defining factor for the look and feel of faction. As you touched upon early in your video, such concerns don't matter as much in a globalised and post-industrial planet however it would make sense to picture that provisioning of materials on other planets would most likely completely alter what type of structures, clothing and weapons humanity would build in the future.
You're as skilled at weaving words into documentaries as you are with stitching. Keep up the great work.
Thanks to you I've now started to critically evaluate the costumes in every vaguely historical tv show and film I watch for historical accuracy, even the fantasy and sci-fi ones. And I'm not even into fashion nor can I sew to save my life. Thanks so much Bernadette!
It's all geography in the end! This will brilliant, thank you! Also your ad made me guffaw aloud.
Great video Bernadette and go on ahead and go off on Season 8, it deserves it and I'd watch you do it!
I can’t believe I just watched this. I have no interest in fashion or dress, yet the presenter managed convey her enthusiasm and constructed a well thought through, and intelligent video essay.
This was so interesting! Would love to see this sort of breakdown for other fictional properties. I get that there probably aren't a lot of properties with this intricate of world building to cover, but LOTR or Star Wars come to mind.
I love these types of videos as someone trying to design realistic (or semi realistic) fantasy clothes for an *alien* planet that is a bit medieval inspired! so much worldbuilding to do just to explain why the main character wears a long sleeveless coat thing and what it's made of haha, but I'm always happy to make my fictional universe more detailed and complex.
Hey Bernadette- would love to see you do an essay on speculative/science fiction. Although the contexts are wildly different, the principles of costuming for scifi are identical to those of fantasy and, as you point out here, a lot of putatively historical fiction. Could you give examples of scifi you consider well-costumed, or show us how you would do it for either a well-known scifi property or one of your own invention?
Okay, this video made me curious about the series enough to want to watch it now... good job doing the impossible!
Watching this video was a huge flood of dopamine right to my soul. So many little parts of my special interests got snagged through the course of this and I adored every second
this was so fun to watch! while I had some issues with got and how they treated the characters writing wise, the world building and all these costuming details are so mind blowing! and I love Bernadette just casually making this presentation with a sword lmao
Such a wonderful teaching video. You really have such an enthusiasm and depth of knowledge on clothing/fashion that watching you makes me want to learn more. Just like an astronomer and geologist I follow have taught me so much.
And please someday when you have time can you put a blooper reel out from this!
It made all the difference. It’s what nagging my unconscious mind in other shows. And sometimes it becomes so extreme you end up feeling it’s completely fake. Realty in fantasy is important to make it believable.
I LOVED this video thank you for all of your hard work!!!!
Best ad ever at the end 😂. Too funny. Great video too, just couldn’t help but giggle at the alternative to “soaking up the summer sun” they wanted her to say 😂🤣😂. Love it 🥰
God tier video.
It should be noted that canonically in Bravos bright colors are a mark of the poor and low status individuals, while the rich prefer darker muted tones. It is a major trading port with easy access to many exotic dyes, but their culture associates the upper classes with the more austere look that may have come from the city's founders having been escaped slaves. The nobles in Bravos should be wearing grey or even black. An ordinary Bravosi wearing black would be breaking sumptuary laws.
This video was so detailed and covered so much! Great job explaining each aspect of costuming. Loved it!
Another personal characteristic of dressing is seen in Lady Margaery Tyrell’s iconic dress that leaves her back bare. Sansa even points it out in the books when other courtiers start wearing more revealing clothes as the Tyrells arrive in King’s Landing.
If I could superlike a video several times, I’d do it every time I rewatch this one. ❤❤❤
I don't care much for Game of Thrones, but I love this quote:
'Historical accuracy, whatever that elusive concept is, ultimately really is just logic.'
👍
Wow, I have never watched a movie in this way! Your intake on this series is so interesting and informative, it's just something I've never thought about and I loved it!
This was brilliant, thanks for posting! Really interesting.
I loved this video! The intricacy of the dress is so subtle when I'm just casually watching, i kept imagining the team of got finding this video and watching you fangirl 🥰🥰😊😆love it!!
also: i love your ads!!! You're soo good at making them funny and #relatable
bernadette we need more thesis length videos of you geeking out over historical fashion i'm begging
Costume CO does a wonderful job analyzing the costumes of various series. Of course, Game of Thrones is among the best!
Seconded!
Yes, yes, yes!
a Lord of the rings one would be sooo great
Yes, more please! Maybe do Gentleman Jack next!
Bernadette brandishing a sword imploring “hear me out” is exactly how I wish to start my day
I mean, she's a confident badass queen with that sword.
Great your last name.
@@jesustovar2549 I laughed too. "Wagner". Lmfaooo.
Then visit catlefest and go camping there...
not just a sword... she used it for her Mic!
why use a mic stand or pin it so boringly to one's collar like any other plebeian... no no No, attach it to the Blade of your Sword, that is the thing you Must do!
A point on Shay's dress as well, could it be that the looser cut not only conserves fabric but also theoretically means that the dress could be given to another woman if Shay ever fell out of favour? A complex, tailored garment is much harder to repurpose for someone else than a garment which is essentially a strip of cloth shaped with gathers and belts, and since the Lannisters seem to treat prostitutes (and probably servants in general) as disposable, it would make sense that they would not want something made for her and her alone.
This would make sense for everyone, hand me downs and inheritance as well as a Lord and Lady supports their retainer
Considering it seems to be the Red Keep servants' uniform, that makes sense
I also thought it could be a little nod to the looser styles of Essos since Shae is from Lorath(?) (Idk I just know it’s one of the Free Cities that she’s from🤷♀️) I feel like her very loose flowy dress with the belt and that “halter-style” neckline really resembles the white dress that Dany wears when she meets with Razdan Mo Eraz of Yunkai (and later the blue version Missandei wears in Meereen) as well as Dany’s early season 1 outfits when she’s in Illyrio’s Manse in Pentos. Just a thought 🤷♀️
@@nevaehaho61 if you watch the scene where Sansa gets her period, the random servant that comes in is wearing the same type of dress as Shae, except there's no belt. So it probably is a uniform but servants are given some leeway in how they wear it (unless it's a seniority thing since Shae is a lady's maid and the other's an ordinary maid)
@@ru1634 ooh you’re right lol. I mean King’s Landing is also pretty hot apparently, since it’s like in the middle of everything and it’s summer when we start the main story. Maybe the style could be from Essos since KL is right in the center of all this commerce and the Essosi styles seem more practical at least in terms of climate, or it could definitely just be their uniform and Shae just threw a belt on cause it’s not as shapeless that way or something 🤷♀️
I wonder if the Bravosi tendency to emphasis the neck has something to do with the city being founded by escaped slaves. The founders would have had scars on their necks from the collars they had to wear when Valayrian slave. Either they wanted to cover the scars or they wanted to show they now they can wear what they wish around their necks.
Holy shiet that makes so much sense.
Wow, that sounds incredibly cool 🤩
Both hypotheses make sense, so it might even be a combination of the two.
Makes a lot of sense
That makes so much sense, I'd say a bit of both! That's amazing
i had noticed the dyes and colors getting more muted as the show went on - it never occurred to me that this was a realistic representation of the disruption of trade and commerce. I always just thought it was an aesthetic choice by show's makers as a "eh look, it's dark and gritty now"
If I was to guess it was probably the latter; Bernadette’s idea is much better though
I think it might have something to do with the filters used: winter is coming and the war is raging, so the whole look of the series became darker and more sombre in contrast to the first seasons' summer feel - but yes, it does have the added advantage of looking like there are literally less shades available on the Westeros markets :-)
The thing is that surely the trope of "eh look, it's dark and gritty now" especially during times of war, became that trope largely due to disruptions in trade and commerce during said times.
It may well have been both reasons. The costumers were clearly working hard and putting out high quality art & craftsmanship throughout all the seasons, so they probably made decisions that made sense in the ASOIAF universe, within the constraints & directives of the production higher-ups.
Definitely both are true! As we know Bernadette isn’t concerned with symbolism in costuming, but it’s absolutely something that is worked into every level of design in filmmaking, props, costumes, set design and set dressing etc etc
the thing with the neck ruffs in Bravos could be a legacy of them never being a slave city, but founded by run-away slaves. The style a legacy from a time when deliberate attention was drawn to their origin as a people who previously had to wear a metal collar but where many now can afford to wears the most expensive cloth collars stitched in elaborate patterns instead...
That's so good! Actually really nice and smart.
That's a really good idea. The fashion could have formed due to newly freed slaves trying to cover marks on their necks from said collars.
Headcannon Accepted!
another thing about Braavos fashion, is the reversed class dynamic where important officials wear plain dark clothing while everyday citizens are vibrant and diverse. Samwell even gets confused for a rich person because of his Night's Watch gear.
I think it's a nod to Dutch fashion. braavos is Venice but also a bit of a Dutch republic
Fun fact, when I was an undergraduate I was in a filmmaking society, and one night there was a talk by one of the costume assistants who worked with Michelle on GoT. She gave away some interesting facts about GoT that made it different from other historically-based shows at the time (I think she used Camelot as an example). She said in GoT they would put all the clothes in washing machines with some dirt to make them rougher/look more worn in, as opposed to pristinely/freshly made outfits. She also said a lot of the wolf pelts the people in Winterfall were Ikea rugs :D
Omg, ikea rugs? That’s funny, would’ve never guessed
People kept there clothes clean back at that time
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl I do believe they're saying this was done to get them to look worn out, not to get them to look dirty
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl yes but if dirt got on them it would have been more difficult to clean, especially for poorer people and people out adventuring or whatever.
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl That time? What time? Westeros isn't a real place, its got magic and dragons and isn't based on historical accuracy of any kind. Its High Fantasy.
This was fantastic. Makes me miss the old seasons of GOT before they got lazy, the passion you put into it mirrors so well the passion those first seasons had.
What happened to Game of Thrones is almost tragic. It went from being one of the most prominent pieces of pop culture to something literally everyone wants to forget about because THAT'S how horribly it ended.
@@piscis210 and it was so bad that it retroactively ruined the entire show. I can't even go back and watch the earlier good seasons.
That was mostly (completely) due to the fact that George branched off to write novels and left the screen plays to the real villains of the show. Not only did they kill the beautiful world and people he created, they did a great disservice to all those cast and crew members that put so much heart and soul into the production.
The costuming and visuals are what kept me coming back for the later seasons.
Season 1 GoT: Hand stitches costumes among many minor details that most people will never acknowledge to immerse the audience into a fantasy world.
Season 8 GoT: Starbucks cup, plastic water bottle, and a night battle scene so badly produced and directed most people only remember black screens.
In case you haven't checked it out, the embroideress for GoT was Michelle Carragher. She has an online portfolio and it's disgusting how beautiful everything is! Insanely talented woman.
Her name is Michele Clapton but yes she’s incredible
@@LuvLee296 no, actually not.
Michelle Clapton is the Costume designer,
The embroideress is Michelle Carragher.
Easy mistake to make, tho. The Michelles were often confused.
Thank you! I will check out her work.
I think it pretty much says everything that the show had its own in-house embroideress!
@@EmpressCosplay oh my mistake. Thanks for letting me know
I have seen my fair share of "historically accurate costume design" video essays but I don't think any of them have started with 'material accessibility' and moved forward from there. Someone is either an anthropology nerd or knows someone who is and I LOVE it.
I might be wrong, but it sounds like you're pretty new to Bernadette's channel. She's a fashion historian, specifically focused on the period between about 1400 to 2000, and mostly in western Europe and America.
@@melodyfussell829 she focuses on pre WWI, actually.
When you mentioned how colored dyes were less in use in Kings Landing by the end of the series it made me realize how easy it is to forget that there were so many talented people who put their all into seasons 8-7. So many great actors, set designers, costum designers, directors, and even musicians making the score put their absolute all into the final 2 seasons and it can be hard to notice that over the dogshit writing.
One thing I also remember is that a lot of the earlier Sansa and Dany costumes in particular were not only repeated, but gradually get more embroidered/repurposed - in Sansa's case, showing that she still adds embellishments to her own clothes, perhaps as a way to cope while a prisoner in King's Landing. And Dany's getting more elaborate as she gained power and wealth, and presumably, more servants with the time to do such work. Awesome video!
I think it was the first episode where we see Sansa being all proud about her needlework/stitching, one can only assume with Arya complaining about her “perfect” older sister that Sansa was adept in sewing as well.
That being said, Ive seen a lot of people taking notice when she looses favor with the king (the Lannisters in general) that her clothing is more tight over her chest, meaning she continued to grow but the Lannisters refused to allow her more fabric to sew a new dress or to just adjust it so it would fit her. It’s such a fantastic way of telling a whole story with just too small clothing. TBH my heart broke when I realized this when watching the show - after first thinking it was wardrobe malfunction but then realized it was intentional to show us this aspect of the petty Lannisters.
Costume, as well as music and set designs were on fire the whole series through, no matter how shitty the writing got.
One harness top Dany wears is later worn by messande
The costume designers described that throughout the early seasons as Daenerys got more in touch with her dragon nature, the scale embroidery was more and more pronounced.
"Black dyes of the North" reminded me one story about reenactors. My friends told me about one group that tried reconstruct this deeply black woolen garment from early middle ages, north of europe. Nothing worked, no black dye accesible so far north was working, and the garment was not worn by a noble, so dye bought from south was not an reasonable option either.
Then. Then it struck them.
Some sheep are already black...
So, breeding black sheep for black wool would be my theory for Nights watch, it even works better with those pieces of fur they wear around their shoulders. It would be so much work to dye this all black, a time these watchers dont have...
Also, great video and lookin' forward to another!
It's been a while since I last read the books, but I think I recall that the Night's Watch did dye the clothes that the men came with. Love the point about the black sheep though!
GRRM stated in an interview that Westeros has superior dying methods than was available in our Middle Ages, leading to a wider range of colors.
Don't forget Black bears as used for the hats of royalty guards in England and Denmark (extremely rare handed down large uniform hats made from no longer obtainable fur).
Black walnut??? Made my hands really black...
Cool (insert weather joke here) that never would have occurred to me, and black wool is less commercially desirable IRL because it tends to be coarser and cant be dyed - so it would theoretically be cheaper for the watch to obtain, while those fancy/daft southerners are busy throwing money away on dyed wool, tut! (I'm a Londoner I'm allowed to mock us soft bastards 😜)
And black sheep would be much less likely to be lost in the snow/landscape, as well as being a cheap and sustainable source for wool - and food once they age out.
For the "fashion armor" Cersei wore in the later seasons, I saw it as a representation of her growing paranoia. She had to still conform to the expected royal look but if an assassin rushed in and tried to attack her in the middle of court or during a walk through the gardens, she would have at least slightly more protection than if she were wearing nothing. Yes, it's not very useful in battle. But she's not planning on going into battle. She's planning on a surprise knife to the chest.
It also reminded me of the more military style Polish doublets that Elizabeth I favored as war loomed and as the Little Ice Age began, just as Winter is Coming to even King's Landing.
I don’t know how much those filigree pauldron things would do realistically
I saw it more as a statement that she can be so masculine as necessary to be queen without a king and that she can handle with the war when it comes.
I would have loved to have seen little rivets showing that she actually had something akin to brigandine beneath her dress, maybe not with padding, but to stop a knife in her torso.
One thing that I don't see enough of is hand-me-downs! I remember how my aunt would send these huge boxes every year, full of clothes that my cousin had grown out of. Those same clothes then went on to be given to my little sister when she got big enough. And even now that my sister is guaranteed to be the youngest for a while longer, my family never gets rid of clothes unless they're irreparably damaged, like stains or holes. I want more shows where younger family members wear something that their older family members wore seasons before! Have kids wear clothes that are decades out of style! Have the print on them be faded and worn!
Yes!! There was *almost* one between Sansa and Catelyn--there is a damask gown that seems to have the same figuring, only Sansa is seen in hers before Catelyn, and Catelyn's (which she wears only in the Tully funeral scene) is a few shades darker. So hand-me-down fabric perhaps, but I was gutted that they didn't go the full hand-me-down garment route!
@@bernadettebanner I wish there were more examples of weight change. It’s seen in king Baratheon and implied with Cercei on and off but would love more of that.
There's a passage in the books that could've been a nice opportunity to showcase this, when Arya is traveling the Riverlands and gets put on a dress by Lady Smallwood in Accorn Hall (presumably one of the lady's old dresses), this never happened on the show of course, but Arya wears dresses when she's traveling with the brotherhood, at least both in Accorn Hall and at the Peach, she dislikes it, possibly because she's a child who was surrounded only by boys at that point and made fun of for being a highborn lady, and not because she hated dresses and girly things.
Here's the Accorn Hall scene between her and Gendry (who are both pre-teens on the books), if anyone's curious:
“You look different now. Like a proper little girl.”
“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”
“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.”
“You don’t. You stink.” Arya shoved him back against the anvil and made to run, but Gendry caught her arm. She stuck a foot between his legs and tripped him, but he yanked her down with him, and they rolled across the floor of the smithy. He was very strong, but she was quicker. Every time he tried to hold her still she wriggled free and punched him. Gendry only laughed at the blows, which made her mad. He finally caught both her wrists in one hand and started to tickle her with the other, so Arya slammed her knee between his legs, and wrenched free. Both of them were covered in dirt, and one sleeve was torn on her stupid acorn dress. “I bet I don’t look so nice now,” she shouted.
This is a nice detail in the 1993 Little Women where we see Amy in a few dresses worn by Meg and Jo once she's grown.
Ron Weasley's formal dress robes for the Yule Ball.
A few details I love is that Sansa's neglect as a prisoner is shown in most of her clothes not quite fitting between the time of Ned's arrest and her marriage to tyrion. Also you can catch missande wearing hand me downs from danarys in later seasons
AMAZING video!!
So you briefly touched on it, but Sansa's coronation dress is STACKED with symbolism, and also so much stunning craftspersonship that we NEVER even see on screen!! I've spent the past 3 years hand crafting a 1:1 replica for a cosplay and I can tell you whew, it was a lot of work. I'd like to think that Sansa made it herself, like she does a lot of her other outfits. The outfit has Sansa essentially just paying homage to the important people in her journey to become Queen in the North. The dress fabric is the same fabric (just a different colour) that was used for Margaery's wedding dress (do not recommend. Beautiful fabric, nightmare to work with. Frays like a bitch). The one sided sleeved shawl is a reference to Aryas later season cape. Theres an embroidered 3d wolf head on the other side, with the black feathered cape (Bran, being the Raven), that blends into the back half with some stunning 3d velvet scales with goldwork and metal wire and fur, representing the scaled fur look of the Stark wolf sigil. This then blends into beaded fish scales that continue down the outer side of the sleeve, representing her mother's Tully house. This fur mantle shape is similar to Jon's and her Fathers. Her dress cut is similar to some of Dany's. The metal spike hanging from the breastplate is worn in the same fashion Littlefinger wears his dagger. And her crown matches both cersei's, but also the wolf pins that Robb wears. And then that's not to mention the just stunning Weirwood leaves, and Weirwood branch steel breastplate. And some of the other unseen details include some TINY stumpwork and goldwork wolf heads on the dress sleeve cuffs, which also are buttoned with the tiniest bronze acorn charms, with there being the same number of buttons as stark children. This whole costume is a stunning piece of art, and you can really see how not only was it Sansa's in-world homage to her journey and the people that influenced her, but also the costume team's homage and goodbye to the work they had completed over the decade.
Was literally about to comment about the person who made the replica, which I assume is you! Saw ya on tiktok
Oooo