Advertisement

Secrets From The 'Game Of Thrones' Costume Department

Secrets From The 'Game Of Thrones' Costume Department

When you get past all the blood, scheming and nudity on Game of Thrones, one of the things that stands out has to be the incredible costumes.

In a new interview with The Telegraph, Game of Thrones' costume director Michele Clapton reveals some lesser known secrets from the set; like what you'll always find Daenerys, (played by Emilia Clarke) wearing under those amazing gowns.

Clapton believes that the costumes have such resonance because they have become an integral part of the plot in their own right.

"I love the fact that you can have a sub story going on because the costume is telling you so much that words aren’t saying at that moment."

After five seasons on the hit show, the Emmy Award-winning costume director shares a few secrets from the set...

1. Daenarys always wears practical shoes, no matter what. "There’s always a fear in her that she will have to leave so it gives her the freedom to always escape and run," says Clapton. "If she had silly shoes on she’d lose all her strength."

2. While you can't deny there is a lot of fur used in the costumes, Clapton says they used faux wherever possible and in the cases they can't, they source vintage pieces from French markets. "Certain actors won’t wear it and we’ll respect that and we’ll always try to make it in fake fur instead but when you’re depicting the things that we are a lot of the time it doesn’t work."

3. Anyone who watches Game Of Thrones (and most people who don't) will know there is a lot of blood. Thankfully all the gore is fake and is designed to be washable, however sometimes (a lot of the time) there's just too much gore to wash out so the costume team will make up multiple versions of the same costume. Same goes for when a scene calls for a costume to be ripped off. "If they rip costumes off people we’ll have two of those. As one has been ripped we’ll be stitching it back up while the other one is being used, and then it goes back and forth and we swap them in and out," Clapton explained. "Poor Sansa gets her stuff ripped off all the time."

4. In the early days, before they knew what a success the show would become, budgets were tight and they had to repurpose the same costume for multiple characters, "We had to go back and un-dye them so they were restored to how they used to be," says Clapton. However these days, and all those Emmys and Golden Globes later, all costumes are saved and archived.

5. That said, some lucky stars have been gifted a small part of their character's costume after they are killed off - sadly she wouldn't divulge if Kit Harrington (a.k.a John Snow) had any such gift - but she did reveal that Jason Momoa (a.k.a Khal Drogo) took a pair of leather pants.

6. Clapton reveals that she is not immune to the wrath of the die-hard fans who know the books inside and out, admitting that sometimes the way something is depicted in the books, just doens't translate on screen. "The Unsullied costumes were the hardest to make. They were very specific in the book about having a spike on top of the helmet but it looked too German First World War so we had to change it," she recalls. "With a book people have built up an image of how they think characters should look and then I come along and don’t make it like it is in their heads."