Caroline McCall’s Costume Vision for ‘House of the Dragon’ Is Steeped in History

When Game of Thrones ended with Daenerys Targaryen’s death at the hand of her lover/nephew Jon Snow, fans felt a blow — both literally and figuratively — but thankfully prequel House of the Dragon picked up the series’ mantle in chronicling House Targaryen’s reign. Now in its second season, House of the Dragon continues to underscore the tragic and power-hungry themes of George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood. Kicking off with Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon is rich with fantastical and history-inspired lore which has drawn from Spartan, Byzantine and Medieval European cultures – producing a great world-building challenge. To bring that story to life visually, costume design remains one of the key pieces and season two is no different.

“I like costumes to feel like clothes and not costumes that the actors have to wear when they become the characters,” explained McCall. “So I started looking at ancient civilizations, medieval dress and how the clothes could be constructed so that everything felt real in the time period.”

For season two, Caroline McCall stepped in to lead costume design. Her resume is prestigious, including work on Downton Abbey, His Dark Materials and more. Coming into the GOT/HOT D universe completely fresh — she notes that she hadn’t watched the series at all when the role was offered to her — there was a lot of catching up to do in the 20 weeks of prep work before production/filming began. But that’s where a lot of the magic kicked off.

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During that period, McCall dove into a months-long research practice. From reading parts of the book, watching the show and investigating cultured design elements, McCall’s approach was not a mere selection of color-themed styles, but a full curation of historically-influenced designs. McCall’s research took her to places like the British Museum where she explored Roman, Ancient Greek, Babylonian and Mesopotamian cultures. It wasn’t just to look at the styles present at the times, but also to discover what existed technology-wise in those bygone eras. “I like costumes to feel like clothes and not costumes that the actors have to wear when they become the characters,” explained McCall. “So I started looking at ancient civilizations, medieval dress and how the clothes could be constructed so that everything felt real in the time period.”

After researching, McCall began separating pieces and style aesthetics for the show’s numerous “houses.” For example, the Blackwoods, a house that supported the Blacks of Rhaenyra Targaryen, tunics feature Celtic-inspired brooches while also borrowing from Viking and Roman styles. Given the Targaryen’s peaceful rule and assimilation into Westerosi society in season one, they harbored a more European/Medieval style. But given the Targaryen’s move to Dragonstone and becoming the Blacks (a political group that supported Rhaenryra Targaryen’s claim as heir to the Iron Throne) while the Hightower family remained in King’s Landing and became the Greens (a political group that supported Queen Alicent Hightower and her half-brother, Aegeon II Targaryen’s claim to the Iron Throne), McCall strives to separate the silhouettes to create an aura of the true Tarfaryens, in which she also took inspiration from the famed last surviving house member, Daenerys Targaryen.

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In evolving their image, the embroidery and jewelry style for the Targaryens becomes more simplistic and brutalist than the finer jewelry that is found in King’s Landing. Where King’s Landing heralds hues of green and gold, Dragonstone digs into black, gray and red, while the Valerians revel in blue. Each place and family offered McCall not just new colors, but stylistic themes to play with. In tandem with creation, McCall’s biggest task is believability. Aside from being visually stunning, the pieces must represent the changes, environments and lifestyles the characters exist within. For example, Princess Rhaenys is a frequent dragon rider, so her outfits have to be appropriate for the activity via armor-like outfits with structured and reinforced details. On the other hand, Rhaenyra begins the season with a similar style as season 1, but as she grows to assert herself, her silhouette becomes more unequivocally Targaryen with stronger shoulder details at play. The same attention to storytelling through wardrobe extends even to Alicent Hightower who’s seldom able to leave the Red Keep. Through her dresses, the costume department can tell a story of her being trapped by her own bad decisions.

“It’s a gritty real world that happens to have dragons and we try to say in something that feels realistic, grubby, dirty and broken down so that it doesn’t feel too fantasy,” said McCall. “The fantasy element is the dragons but even they’ve been designed to be believable.”

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McCall was not alone in executing such a giant task. Even though the designer functions as the lead for the costume direction, the department as a whole entailed 150 artisans that spanned teams of metal workers, embroiderers, leather workers, military assistants, textile artists and more. The costume department’s practices went beyond just sourcing fabrics and creating looks. Whether it be textile artists dying and printing fabrics or armory members crafting weapons props, all of the teams worked harmoniously to bring the vision together. Additionally, the department tried to use natural fabrics as much as possible, while ensuring that the crafted styles existed within the time and activity. Out of the many new creations, a special product by the department was “scaled fabric,” which was actually a printed effect on velvet devore to look like scales – making printed fabrics and crafting their own designs a core tactic for building the season.

From a design perspective, McCall had the ability to maneuver House of the Dragon’s second season in whichever direction she saw fit. But what’s spotlighted in each new episode on Sunday is McCall’s strength in expanded cognizant design. It’s easy to go off the rails with fantasy shows, but McCall understands that danger – instead exhibiting a design style that’s enticing, visually captivating and most importantly, realistic, at least as much as you can be for a show with dragons.

“The design was about thinking logically all the time and make rules for yourself,” she says.“With fantasy, you can think, ‘Oh I can do anything.’ But if you do ‘anything’, it’s a big mess. You need to create your own logic and reasoning.”