Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 1 – Top 10 Costumes
Welcome back to another episode of Costume Cinematographico and this being my first Top 10 Most Compelling Costumes for Game of Thrones this one for the debut episode of season 7.
And a warning, there will be spoilers in this episode for everything that’s happened so far in the show and more importantly from the new season of Game of Thrones season 7. So if you haven’t seen it yet episode 1, come back and watch once you have finished.
I also have a few leaked photos that I’m going to share. I don’t think that they will spoil any plot points for you but I just want to share them with you because they all sort of help tell the story.
So let’s count down what I think are the most compelling costumes in episode 1 starting with number 10.
Littlefinger has dressed very consistently since season one except that his clothing, it’s sort of gotten warmer the more north he goes and it’s not really surprising that his palate matches that of Sansa. Littlefinger, seen here wearing a boucle wool houppelande, which is an outer garment that was popular during the Middle Ages. The distinctive characteristic of this type of garment, it has long hanging sleeves and a full length full body. You might remember that Littlefinger dresses Sansa and himself in matching houppelandes back in season 5. I kind of thought that was cute. Here, you can see that when his coat falls away it shows his other coat underneath. The houppelande is sometimes lined in fur although it appears that his coat is merely trimmed with fur and in this close-up of on the right is a pin of Littlefinger’s personal sigil, a mockingbird. Here’s a better shot at the textured fabric with just a glimpse at the gray lining. They’ve added darts at the side front and just to create some shaping throughout the body and I’ve been promising a Littlefinger dedicated video so I hope that I can get to that for you before the summer is done.
Queen Cersei has completely made over the Kingsguard (now Queensguard) from the traditional gold and white lacquered uniform worn by only seven knights and without the gold cloaks I might add to this black lacquered more sinister style plated armor with silver trimmings. One thing that I failed to mention before in my previous videos is that the gambeson or the coats that they were underneath the armor they’re actually made from the same cut black leather from Cersei’s coronation gown. The embossed silver embellishment that’s on the breastplate and the shoulders, it’s taken from the abstracted Lannister lion that you’ll see in Cersei’s crown. But I think the standout feature of the armor are these sort of lobster tail style pauldrons which are the shoulder guards.
In this other shot of the Mountain, now I suppose he’s the [Lord] Commander of the Kingsguard {Queensguard],we see his coat is cut to the knee but the front of his legs are covered with plate metal greaves or shin guards. You might have noticed that Jaime he’s no longer a member of the Kingsguard (Queensguard). Instead he’s dressing in Lannister armor. I love this shot of the Kingsguard [Queensguard] following after Cersei, looking very much like some black stormtroopers. Not too much of a surprise from Missandei and Greyworm looking very much like they belong to the Targaryen party. Missandei’s tunic has the hexagonal cut in the front skirt, now that costume designer Michelle Clapton has abandoned the arched openings.
Game of Thrones Season 7 – Costumes
She’s also wearing the same Cobra style leather harness that Dany wore in season 3 although it’s been dyed black. Here’s the back view so you’ll see what I mean. Greyworm’s costume is a slightly modified Unsullied uniform except with the addition of a studded brigandine jacket under his armor and a slightly altered gorget, this one with a three-headed dragon pin. Here is Greyworm’s brooch on the left and Missandei’s identical brooch on the right, although she actually wasn’t wearing it in the season opener. It appears that to have been an off-camera gift to the two characters at some point from Dany, since they’re the only ones who are wearing them. Missandei’s brooch also holds up a shoulder cape of sorts and I suspect that Steensons Jewelers in Ireland custom made these pieces. Tyrion is somewhat subdued here, you might recall that he said nothing for the actually the entire episode, allowing Dany to have her moment upon a return to Dragonstone.
So his clothes, like Missandei’s and Greyworm are in like you know, in tones of charcoal gray and black and the most notable item of course is the silver hand of the hand of the Queen brooch the Danny presents Tyrion with in season six. As I’ve mentioned before, Tyrion has had one of the greatest character arcs in the entire series and his clothing has reflected this. So gone are his Lannister fineries like the beautiful brocade and silks that he once wore, the gold embellishments. So here he’s just wearing a very simple leather jerkin, cloth trousers and a simple striped brocade doublet underneath. They’re still good quality but without all the bells and whistles. I was amazed at how much this actress who played Lyanna Mormont has grown in the past year. Her clothing is very similar to the Starks and her fellow Northerners. She wears a long flowing cloak with cross straps and a pelt collar. Given her speech about not sitting [knitting] by the fire, it seems only fitting that as the Lady of House Mormont.
Under her cloak she’s dressed in men’s clothing here’s an on-set shot of her without the cape. She’s dressed in a cloth gambeson with the bound skirt tabs and a matching jerkin, trousers and leather boots. We know that Arya will eventually have a new set of duds because of the promotional shots we see that we’ve seen in Entertainment Weekly. But for now, we have to make do with this ensemble which is a collection of rough traveling clothes that she’s obtained somehow and I’d mentioned before that her cloak looks sort of Stark in style and perhaps she’s intended it to look that way but the difference of course is that instead of a fur pelt collar, she has this rough suede one. Arya also no longer hiding that she’s a girl and she’s now nearly a woman and she’s actually let her hair grow out a bit.
Like Dany, Sansa’s costume is an entire amalgamation of all of her looks from the previous six seasons. While I know some of you are missing her beautiful flowing gowns, I doubt she’ll be going back in that direction any time soon. As she [Sansa] said in this episode, she’s learned a great deal from Cersei. So in a symbolic way, she’s using her own form of armor by way of a leather belt and jewelry to protect herself. The color in this episode, at least where the costumes are concerned has been kind of really drained out and Clapton had mentioned last season that it shows that things are getting more serious Sansa has incorporated a few elements from her dark Santa look including her Needle pendant this one now silver and missing the crossbar and her collar has the Starks sigil closures which is a form of jewelry for Northerners in Winterfell.
In this close-up image on the left you can see the fur trim cuffs on her gown and on the right the raven feather trim on her bodice. Sansa wears a charcoal gray cloak with a batik leaf motif, perhaps as one viewer mentioned a weirwood leaf, and most importantly Sansa wears a wolf pelt collar. Back in season one, you might remember she wore a rabbit collar like all highborn children do at Winterfell, but now she’s no longer a child, she is a grown woman. What of the mad Queen herself dressed in somber black and silver tones in keeping with her deadness inside!? I’m not going to touch on this costume because as you may have recognized its Cersei’s coronation gown from season six. This costume however is new. We get a few shots of her wearing it in both the throne room and in the exterior shot. This costume actually goes way back to the original teaser and the HBO promo so we’ve actually seen quite a bit of this costume and I’ve done a complete breakdown on it all of her seasons looks actually so if you want to check them out, I’ll leave a link in the description below.
This however, is the best image to date that I’ve seen of her gorget and pauldrons or the collar and shoulder pad thingies that she wears on her gown. One thing that pleased me, is how great this all looked on camera. So in this shot, you can clearly see the Lannister’s sigil, and it’s not abstracted at all like it is on her crown. She’s getting kind of “matchy”, she may be a little bit too matchy, you know, with the Queen’sguard and even in the redecorating of the throne room and I’ll admit all the silver and black it’s beginning to be a bit much considering the Dany also uses silver and black as her theme colors.
As a side note, I just found out the other day that the wired metallic braid used by embroidery artist Michelle Carragher on Cersei’s collar was actually provided by Kreinick manufacturing company Inc and they’re out of West Virginia. The color that they used was natural pewter so again I’ll leave a link in the description below if you’re interested in that. Daenerys Targaryen closes the premiere in a stunning Targaryen inspired costume. I’ve done a very detailed explanation of her costume in another video which I’ll leave a link for. The one thing I have to say about it is that the still pictures really didn’t do it justice. You could really see the gorgeous embroidery work of Michelle Carragher – it just really justified all the painstaking hours, most likely weeks of work you know, maybe even months put into that costume for just one great moment.
What I love most about it especially, you know that, you know I was able to watch it in high definition you could see the sharpness of the crystals on the collar. I mean, they look so sharp that they might actually cut you and the rubies Swarovski crystal beads, they actually caught the light and sparkled in the Sun. If you didn’t know actually, Swarovski crystals, they’re just high-end Austrian beads that have her you know they think glisten really nicely. Game of Thrones really held Euron’s reveal close to the vest – yes and that’s a wardrobe pun! Euron shows up on Cersei’s doorstep in full leather, including some tight trousers to show off his rather large appendage, to offer himself as a potential suitor to Cersei.
In case you forgot what he looked like from before, here he wears an iron island studded cloth Brigantine from season 6. The Armada of Greyjoy ships and actually Euron himself kind of remind me of Captain Jack Sparrow in his swagger, you know there’s a little bit of Keith Richards and some Ozzy Osbourne thrown in for good measure. In case you’re wondering why his hair is so short, I think it’s because the actor who plays Euron had this style seen here in Ghost in the Shell’ which was just released before season 7 of Game of Thrones. So I don’t think it was actually a design decision. Euron’s a cocky and cockney rock-and-roller trying to get with the Queen the only thing that I’ve been able to piece together and keeping in mind that the reason that costume designer Michelle Clapton made these decisions is perhaps that Euron has had this outfit tailored for his parley with Cersei, wanting something that advertises his assets.
But you know since Euron is kind of crass this is what he sort of came up with. [Michele] Clapton has been on a bit of a leather kick lately, especially these cut leather pieces that have been popping up on Tywin, Cersei and now Euron and you know honestly I’ll admit it’s getting a tad boring. The leathers themselves, they are beautiful. As I mentioned in the previous video, both Charles Dance and Lena Headey costumes were constructed from the leather producers D’Alessio Galliano in Rome, Italy so you know it’s likely that Euron’s own star cut leather jacket comes from the same supplier. Okay, so here’s a leaked photo – I don’t think it shows much else hopefully not but I just wanted to show you this as an example so Euron here, he wears what looks like a full-length sleeveless leather coat.
It has, you know, more connection to the Iron Islands at least and I think that you’re on should have worn this in his meeting with Cersei. It would have really anchored it down his look more instead of just looking so contemporary like 20th century. For the actor, while I think he was awesome like he was really great, it would have given him more to work with. Euron’s shirt, it’s similar to the bib front Civil War era shirt made popular in westerns by actor John Wayne and the stylish shirt has also been featured in the greatest of space westerns Star Wars, seen here on its hero Luke Skywalker. Euron was clearly attempting to up his sexiness factor by wearing his shirt open.
So what do you think of this list? Did I miss any of your favorites? If so, feel free to leave it in the comments below.
