Carole Horst For the show’s recently completed second season, “House of the Dragon” costume designer Caroline McCall built on Season 1, using rich fabrics and color palettes that included variations of greens and blacks, taking best friends-turned-adversaries Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) into different directions, clothes-wise.
Season 1’s work by Jany Temines evolved over the course of the season into powerful statements as worn by Rhaenyra, while Alicent’s power slipped as she turned up in classically feminine medieval gowns.
McCall notes that the fabrics are heavier, more sumptuous, with velvets and satins, and rich embroidery. The costumes also reflect the fact that in the time period when “House of the Dragon” unfolds, the climate in King’s Landing, where a lot of the action takes place, is cooler than the King’s Landing of “Game of Thrones.”Of course, some of her inspiration came from the story itself, as dictated by the split between the warring factions of “House of the Dragon” —the Greens of the Hightowers and the Blacks of the Targaryens. What were your influences for Rhaenyra and Alicent besides the clothes in Season 1? I looked at Westeros in this time period, and looked at what Jany had done in series one.
My feeling was that King’s Landing and the Hightowers, they were more kind of classic, medieval in style and European. I loved what Jany had done with with the wedding robes for Rhaenyra and Daemon and the dragon keepers — like, something that belonged to old Valyria and the Valyrian culture.
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