Costumes: King's Landing

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See overview article, "Costumes".

King's Landing is the capital city of the Seven Kingdoms, location of the Red Keep which contains the royal court and the Iron Throne. The city was founded three centuries ago after the Targaryen Conquest by King Aegon I Targaryen, at the site where his army first landed and began his campaign which conquered and unified the kingdoms.

Aegon the Conqueror also carved out territory from neighboring kingdoms around King's Landing to make an entirely new subregion, "The Crownlands", to be ruled by the Iron Throne directly. The TV series has not extensively shown that the Crownlands are an entire region/"kingdom" extending beyond King's Landing - though even within the novels, the Crownlands are only three centuries old and really don't have much "local identity", instead largely defined and shaped by trends emanating from King's Landing itself. Hence, this sub-section is titled "King's Landing" and not "The Crownlands". Technically, the islands in Blackwater Bay such as Dragonstone are part of the Crownlands, but by the time Dragonstone debuts in Season 2, Stannis Baratheon has been ruling it for 18 years, so characters on Dragonstone wear Baratheon-style costumes, covered in the subsection on costumes in the Stormlands.

The royal court, and the city's general populace
King's Landing does not have its own unique identity, so much as it is defined as the location of the royal court around the Iron Throne: it is where rivalries between different court factions are displayed through their clothing styles.  When the Lannisters dominate at the royal court, the courtiers, officers, and hangers-on adopt Westerlands-style clothing; when the Tyrells are powerful at court, everyone switches to Reach-style fashions. The city does have several of its own unique styles, shaped by the fact that it is a major city and trade hub for long-distance shipping: they can afford and obtain more exotic clothing. Internal factions at the royal court can also generate their own unique clothing styles. During the events depicted in the TV series, there are no unique clothing and armor styles for soldiers from the Crownlands: Robert's Baratheon guards dress in Stormlands-style armor, while Joffrey is basically a puppet ruler backed up by Tywin Lannister's support, so all of "Joffrey's soldiers" are really "Tywin's Lannister soldiers" wearing Westerlands-style armor.

Even moreso than in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, King's Landing is where rival factions display their allegiance through their style of clothing, and where subordinates are prosperous enough to change their clothing styles frequently to reflect shifting trends, both in fashions and in politics. The fashions worn by the royal family spiral out to the royal courtiers and officials, and in turn trickle down to servants, handmaidens, and commoners in the rest of the city. The extreme poor in the slums of Flea Bottom dress simply, but wealthier merchants and urban artisans are prosperous enough to try to emulate popular court fashions, albeit on a simplified scale.

During Seasons 1 and 2, all of the courtiers in King's Landing imitated Queen Cersei Lannister's clothing styles (asymmetric kimono-like wrapped dresses, with armor-like metal belts, and large billowing sleeves). As a carefully planned development by Clapton, however, as Season 3 progressed more and more background courtiers started gradually switching to Margaery Tyrell's new fashion style (plunging necklines, sleeveless, often backless), to reflect her rising social and political influence at the expense of Cersei.


 * In the TV series, King's Landing is presented as having a warm, Mediterranean or even a sub-tropical climate, and outdoor scenes set in King's Landing are filmed in Mediterranean locations such as Malta and Croatia. Clapton explained that clothing designs for King's Landing were specifically designed to reflect this warmer look.  Author George R.R. Martin has noted this isn't quite the same as in the books, where it has more of a temperate climate, saying: "King's Landing, that's the capital, is not quite so tropical - in the books it's more like medieval Paris or London." According to the production team in Season 1 behind-the-scenes featurettes, the change in climate was made because they wanted to emphasize how much more lush and abundant King's Landing is compared to Winterfell. It's quite possible that the TV city's climate is far less comfortable in winter.

Quotes
Clapton: "They're near the sea, they can trade, they have silks, they have colors, much more sort of Mediterranean feel.  There's more jewelry.  But it's just the color is really lifted...We decided really, through the buildings, through the architecture, and through the climate, to make it much more "Persian" I guess in feel."

Clapton: "Cersei is all about fashion and styling. She tends to wear very soft wrapped silks which are embroidered. It's like a kimono style, but with a slightly medieval cut. And she has a lot of metal belts, because I like the idea that she's armored in a sense...The court often wear very similar pieces to her, the wraps and metal belts, and then that's copied in ways to the working class.

"One of the mandates early on was to make King’s Landing very distinct from the traditional medieval courts and cities one usually finds in these types of stories. It’s warm and sunny; the climate is somewhat Mediterranean. It’s a lot of fun to do because King’s Landing is a port city, so we have access to color, silks, much more variety. And the Lannisters are a huge presence, so there’s a lot of red, but also pale greens and saffron yellows, and you can use jewelry. There are a lot of choices.

As with Winterfell and other regions, I started with the most prominent characters because, in theory, the people are influenced by the head of the society. So Cersei has these kimono-style, wrap-around dresses that influence the other ladies at court and in the city. Even the prostitutes in Littlefinger’s brothel wear a similar-style dress, albeit in a different way. Then there’s Jaime, with his asymmetrical coat, whose influence trickles down to the male characters."

Clapton: "Margaery Tyrell sweeps into King’s Landing and takes it by storm. As such, her wardrobe is very unique and very much at odds with everything else in King’s Landing [i.e. the Westerlands style, because Cersei used to be the trendsetter]. It’s a very structured look – the new style coming in after the war. For the first time in a long time, Cersei won’t be the trendsetter in the capital. It’s a fun way to reflect their future rivalry."

Clapton: "[During Season 3] in King's Landing, Margery [Tyrell] is beginning to influence the dress of the younger girls in court, whilst the older girls continue to follow Cersei [Lannister], even though she has shifted her style to a previous Margery-like look. A cruel blow for her and this makes her hate Margery more!"

Prostitutes
This trickle-down effect of fashion extends all the way from the royal court to the prostitutes living in the city, particularly high class brothels which cater to the wealthy nobility, such as Littlefinger's brothel. Lesser nobles, wealthy merchants, and well-to-do commoners in the city emulate the fashions set at the royal court. In turn, prostitutes will wear clothing that imitates designs that are currently fashionable among the well-to-do.

As Clapton explained, this is a universal principle even in real life for what styles prostitutes wear. They don't wear styles that are utterly alien to the culture and time they are living in. Rather, prostitutes will imitate the fashions set by the wealthy and powerful, but cut to be more revealing and alluring.

Therefore, the prostitutes such as Ros in Littlefinger's brothel basically wear the same fashions that regular handmaidens do, but slightly modified to be more loose and revealing. Higher-end prostitutes will imitate more expensive clothing of the minor nobility. When she comes into a leadership position at the brothel as the madam running it under Littlefinger (in Seasons 2 and 3), Ros shifts to wearing gowns which are basically knockoffs of Cersei's Lannister-style popular at the royal court: wrap-around and kimono-like with an asymmetrical cut, and long billowing sleeves. Ros moves on to an even better-quality gown in Season 3, which is even more clearly imitating the Lannister/Westerlands style that Cersei sets at the royal court - the difference is that her copy is looser, with a more revealing neckline. Ros and many of the other prostitutes even wear their hair in the highly braided horizontal fan-shape which Cersei popularized at court, and which her handmaidens and servants also imitate.

A few prostitutes do break this principle, wearing foreign fashions, in situations where they want to appeal to those clients looking for an "exotic" experience. For example, Armeca pretended that she was a foreigner and couldn't even speak the Common Tongue, even though she was actually born and raised in King's Landing itself.

This emulation principle is followed by all prostitutes within the TV series, i.e. prostitutes in the Free Cities and Slaver's Bay would also wear more revealing imitations of what the rich upper classes wear. Most prostitutes in the TV series so far, however, have appeared in brothels in King's Landing.

The principle even apparently extends to homosexual male prostitutes, as seen with the male prostitute Olyvar introduced in Season 3, who returns in Season 4 as the new majordomo running the brothel for Littlefinger after Ros is killed. Olyvar basically dresses how fashionable and well-to-do members of the merchant-class or lower nobility dress, just worn a bit more loosely. He seems to wear clothing styles that imitate how Littlefinger himself dresses, but he wears his collar open.

Quotes
Clapton: "[In King's Landing], as with Winterfell and other regions, I started with the most prominent characters because, in theory, the people are influenced by the head of the society. So Cersei has these kimono-style, wrap-around dresses that influence the other ladies at court and in the city. Even the prostitutes in Littlefinger’s brothel wear a similar-style dress, albeit in a different way. Then there’s Jaime, with his asymmetrical coat, whose influence trickles down to the male characters."

Clapton, on costuming for prostitute characters: How do you dress a medieval fantasy prostitute? Same way as you dress everyone else, but with a slight twist. In King's Landing, for example, they wear similar costumes to the hand maidens - the difference is that they come off much more strategically. "[Just like] you see with contemporary prostitutes," Clapton said, "They wear something similar to someone going out for the night – it’s just what they do with it and how they wear it."

Joffrey Baratheon
Joffrey Baratheon's appearance gets increasingly more opulent because he's an arrogant fool. This is in contrast with his (believed) father King Robert: he wore high quality materials, but generally his clothes were mostly functional, as he was at heart a soldier who won his throne on the battlefield, and didn't care about being fashionable. Joffrey, however, dresses foppishly - just as he keep shouting "I am the king!" as if this will make it so, he dresses in very rich clothing as if to try to convince those around them that he is a king because he has the appearance of a king. His clothing has elaborate gold tracery, fine silks, and elaborate sashes. He also wears a lot of jewelry and rings. Joffrey also tends to wear large open sleeves and capes, because they make him look physically larger. Overall, he's trying too hard to look like a king.

Joffrey also has very expensive, elaborate armor made for himself when facing a siege in the Battle of the Blackwater - but of course, he is a coward, so he never even gets close to using it in actual combat. Similarly, a running joke in the novels is that Joffrey keeps having elaborate and expensive swords made and giving them fierce names like "Lion's Tooth", "Hearteater", and "Widow's Wail", but not once does he ever swing them against a foe, because he is a coward with no martial skills whatsoever (even Arya Stark managed to overpower him).

Compare this with how Stannis dresses: similar to Robert, he wears mostly functional clothing, Stannis's reasoning being that he doesn't need to convince other people he's the king by how he dresses, because he knows he is the rightful king.

On a simple level, Joffrey is simply a very vain and self-absorbed person, constantly trying to appear up to date in the latest fashions. The novels emphasize that Joffrey's good looks are quite literally his only positive trait: otherwise he is unintelligent, unwise, unskilled at combat, unskilled at strategy, unskilled at basic governance, prone to psychotic outbursts of anger, etc. When a knight is asked to say something nice about him after he dies in the novels, the only thing he can think to say is that he was tall for a boy his age. So naturally, given that Joffrey's good looks are his only positive trait, he would try to emphasize them with fashionable clothing.

Joffrey's hair is cut short in the TV series, to make the actor look younger. Joffrey's hair is a bit longer and curly in the books (compare with how Jaime, Ned, or King Robert wear their hair longer). Joffrey is 12 years old in the first novel, and most of the younger characters were aged up by about two years in the TV continuity (Arya is 11 instead of 9 years old), but this would still make Joffrey 14 - and actor Jack Gleeson was 18 years old when he filmed Season 1. The producers hired an older actor because Joffrey was a major role which would bear a large amount of narrative weight, requiring a more experienced performer. The TV series made other attempts to make this fit: Joffrey is later stated in dialogue to have been 16 years old in Season 1:  four years older than his book counterpart instead of only two, and only two years younger than Gleeson's actual age. It also helps that Joffrey has the personality of an insane, petulant toddler in a teenager's body, so it's not as if he "acts his age" in any context.

Quotes
Clapton, on Stannis: "I don't think Stannis is a sort of "Joffrey":  he's not trying to show that he's king, he just believes he is.  This is his look, and what it always will be."

King's Landing under the Targaryens
Another factor is that when the TV series introduces King's Landing in Season 1, it has been dominated by House Baratheon for 17 years (since Robert's Rebellion overthrew House Targaryen) - though because House Lannister has been propping up Baratheon rule financially, Cersei's Lannister/Westerlands style dominates the capital. The TV series hasn't had much opportunity to show what King's Landing fashions looked like before this point in time, back during the reign of the Targaryen dynasty.

Clapton has stated, however, that the Targaryens did have their own unique clothing styles back when they were in power, long before the TV series takes place. As Clapton explained, Viserys Targaryen's costume in Season 1 is supposed to be an echo of what Targaryen fashions used to look like back during the reign of the Mad King: Viserys was a child when his father was deposed but he does remember what the fashions at the old court looked like.

Potential live-action prequel projects, depicting Robert's Rebellion, the Tales of Dunk and Egg series, or earlier events, would have to take into account that there used to be a distinct Targaryen style of clothing - and also that even within the Westerlands or Reach, fashions don't stay static and unchanging across many decades. Starting in Season 5, the TV series will finally begin to depict flashback scenes to events from years before the TV series itself, which may depict different fashion trends in the past (the novels have multiple flashback scenes but the TV adaptation omitted them in the first four TV seasons, due to fears that casual viewers would be confused by them).


 * Unlike Viserys, his sister Daenerys doesn't remember the old Targaryen style because she was born a few months after her father died and was secreted away to the Free Cities when she was just a baby, where she grew up, so she doesn't dress in this style. When Daenerys first appears in Season 1, she generally just wears whatever Free Cities-style dresses their current host gives them; it is outright stated that her dresses are a gift from Illyrio, their host in Pentos.  Instead, Daenerys gradually develops her own evolving fashion styles throughout her journeys (see "Costumes: Major Characters").

As for Viserys himself, a point Clapton made for including Heraldry is that it is usually a subtle motif worked into costumes, not a giant symbol emblazoned across their chests like a comic-book superhero. Ned Stark doesn't have a foot-tall direwolf sigil on his costume's chest. The one exception Clapton made to this is with Viserys: he has a large Targaryen dragon-sigil emblazoned across his entire chest. Similar to Joffrey, this is because he is trying to hard: as if to scream, "Look at my, I'm a Targaryen! Respect me!" Ironically - and it isn't clear if Clapton intended this or not - Viserys's costume is not actually an accurate representation of the Targaryen heraldry: it depicts a six-limbed dragon, with one pair of wings and two pairs of legs. Dragons actually have four limbs, two hind legs and two wing-arms, like a bat. Only in other fantasy literature do some dragons have six limbs, with a pair of feet, a pair of arms, and a pair of wings sprouting out of their backs (George R.R. Martin made it a point to give them four instead of six limbs because he wanted to make at least some concessions towards realism, and from a mechanical standpoint it would actually be very difficult for a six-limbed dragon to fly). For all of Viserys's taunting that "You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?" -- he actually doesn't know what a dragon is supposed to look like. Granted, they have been extinct for a century and a half and no man living had seen one, but he never even paid attention to descriptions in books or artwork. Even purely focusing on his family's heraldry as a child, he should have realized they don't have six limbs (heraldry used by the Mad King or Viserys's brother Rhaegar accurately depicted dragons with only four limbs). It's a subtle hint that Viserys is utterly unworthy of claiming the Targaryen legacy.

Quotes
Clapton: "Viserys, there's a sort of link to King's Landing, I mean he remembers, he's older, he remembers the styles that were worn then. The cut is actually quite similar, very sort of clean lined, with very much a dragon emblem, and ready to go back and claim his throne."

Clapton: "Regarding the family sigils, we generally wanted to avoid having characters wearing them on their chests, like Superman or something, but Viserys is the one character who sports this huge [dragon] sigil doublet. He wears it the whole time, as if to scream, "I'm a Targaryen!" And it gets more battered and dirties as the season goes on and he gets further and further away from what he wants. It's a lovely way to reflect this blind hope; the costume fades with him."

Quotes
It’s also interesting to look at Littlefinger’s [Aidan Gillen] journey — he started off very much as a courtier, he was always very organized with his little chain and his notebook, and then suddenly he actually stopped wearing the mantle. He had just little glimpses of turquoise beneath his costume and the slit was cut slightly higher. ... Slowly you realize he ran brothels. His costumes, just slowly, became a little richer. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2012/03/creative-minds-game-of-thrones-costume-designer-michele-clapton.html

Clapton, on changes in Littlefinger's clothing after returning to the Vale in Season 4: "He just becomes more opulent, it's his look but it just gets bigger and grander, and he carries himsef - actually his cloak is incredibly heavy, and it sort of gives him this bearing."

Quotes
Kingsguard armor isn't pure white because that would be difficult to film: http://www.thecredits.org/2013/03/the-art-of-armory-chatting-with-game-of-thrones-costume-designer-michele-clapton/

Page 70 “This was a challenge, as I’ve never designed armor before. We started with the Kingsguard, which are totally white in the books. But we felt that wouldn’t translate well on-screen, so we worked gold into the design, while still keeping the signature white cloak.

Page 70 Simon Brindle, costume armor supervisor: “The Lannister armor is more militaristic, intimidating, sinister – with a Japanese influence that’s quite disarming. With the Gold Cloaks, there’s a Persian influence in keeping with the Medeterranean look of the city.”

Simon Brindle, costume armor supervisor, page 70: “I loved the opportunity to work on this series, as you’re not tied down to any one period. This was so freeing. I was intrigued by Michele’s initial designs for the Kingsguard and the Lannister guard. She was looking at eastern influences, Asian, Indian – unusual references for this sort of thing – which she mixed with recognizable touchstones from western medieval European armor.”http://www.spin.com/articles/game-of-thrones-costume-designer-michele-clapton-interview-hbo/

The Purple Wedding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ottevaCcAw Joffrey's wedding costume was supposed to be ostentatious, opulent and almost distasteful. Joffrey's wedding crown has Baratheon antlers but subtley, creeping roses and vines within it, and Margaery's crown is all rose fines, implying that Margaery is wrapping her control around him.

Margaery's wedding dress: "I wanted it to be sort of quite traditional dress in a funny way. But then again roses can be so pretty, and I didn't want her to be pretty, I wanted her to be slightly dangerous, because I think she is. And it just literally grew from there." - hence the metal rose vines running along her dress, which subtley are spiked with metal thorns if you look closely, showing her danger underneath.

"Cersei is pulling back a little bit. She's not the sort of powerhouse that she was, and it was just, I wanted her to be slightly quieter.  Very beautiful, just not rocking the red so much.  It's just a sort of slightly muted look to her."

"Tywin actually does very red, which is very rare for him. I think in this moment, this is sort of securing up the throne, and so he's brought out the red."

"I supposed I wanted the Tyrells to look very much 'of a group'. I tried to formalized it with a sort of rose [print] fabric, because it's the fabric of their family, and this was being done for family."

Clapton, on Sansa's special necklace at the Purple Wedding: "I looked actually at lots of art deco and art nouveau necklaces, even Margaery's [necklace] as well was inspired by the same period.  It's actually very exciting, I very rarely design jewelry."

Mourning clothes
Mourning clothes: Cersei is black and dagger-print, the Tyrells switch from teal-green to black...but still have flower patterns! It's fake mourning.

Jaime's prosthetic hand
The genius of Jaime Lannister's golden hand next season, which we also get a sneak peak of in the video above, snuck up on Clapton, for example. His sister, Cersei, gifts it to him as a replacement for the one that got chopped off last season. In that vein, Clapton designed it as something Cersei would choose to disguise a deformity that she fears. It's beautiful, ornate, and feminine.

But, the prop actually turned out to embody Jaime's personality in a way Clapton didn't expect. "It became the right thing for Jaime. He's not just this sort of a brutal, sarcastic, callous man. He actually has a really sensitive, quite interesting side." In this case, the character became more like the costume Clapton designed for him. "It was really beautiful in a way," she added. http://www.fastcompany.com/3028226/most-creative-people/deciphering-the-hidden-messages-in-game-of-thrones-costumes

"Because Cersei commissioned it, I wanted it to have a sort of beauty to it, so we actually took the reference from her armor that she wore last year, we took the patterning from that and then applied it to the hand.

Because he could take it on and off himself, I think eventually Nikolaj quite quickly got used to it. It took a month to make. We took a cast, and then we had to make an iron hand based on Jaime's cast, and then hammered the brass around it."