Costume Designer Michele Clapton Leaves the Show, Discusses Favorite Looks From Season 5

Michele Clapton has been designing the fashion of Westeros and Essos for five seasons, creating everything from the original Stark fashion lineup in the pilot episode, all the way to the Dornish chiffon looks of the finale. But as she told Fashionista in a recent interview, after 50 episodes, she’s done.  “I feel like we’ve covered all bases now. It was really important to me, knowing that I was going to leave, to actually design the costumes for each [geographic] area so it’s complete,” Clapton says. “In my head anyway it’s a complete look that I left.”

With the fifth season now over, and all the designs for every geographic area spelled out for the designer who takes over for the final two (or three) seasons, Clapton reveals some of her favorite looks from this year.

Game of Thrones always goes all out in the costuming department for weddings, and our first proper Northern wedding was no exception. What struck me about Sansa’s wedding gown is that (much like Margaery’s second wedding gown) this one was wholly Sansa. Clapton says that was deliberate. “It’s Sansa trying to respect everyone that’s been before her. She finally feels like she can make Winterfell a family home again. So I wanted to incorporate pieces that represented her family.”  There’s the animal fur of the wolf that also recalls the furs we saw Ned and Robb sport in earlier seasons. There’s the shape of the dress, which is very northern, and one her mother wore frequently. There’s the fish shaped closures, which represent her Tully heritage. The only problem on set so that when Sansa walked: “[T]he dress and it was like a snow plow. It cleared the whole path because it was so big and heavy. They had to reset the snow every take.”

Margaery’s shift to wearing nothing but Lannister gold after three years of Tyrell blue was a head turner this year, and a deliberate choice on Clapton’s part. “It’s funny, I wanted her to be a bit more like Cersei, with the metal armor look,” Clapton says. “Margaery doesn’t need to play the, ‘Oh, I’ve hardly got anything on and I’m so young!’ game. She can actually say, ‘I’m queen now.'” She may be queen now, but she’s also visually subserviant to her husband’s house with this choice of color, a subtle nod to how hard she’s playing the game.

Then there was the choice for Dany to give up the blue she’s been wearing for the last few years. According to Clapton, the blue was actually a hold over from her days as Khaleesi, and was in memory of her beloved Drogo and his blue woad style body paint. “Now she’s got this sense of power and also a sense of immortality,” Clapton said. “I wanted to give this rather untouchable [quality] to her. The idea behind the white and pale grey is the sense of removal, a removal from reality.” 

But Dany doesn’t just wear gowns—that sense of needing to leave a place quickly has never left her. “I still always put trousers underneath because in her psyche anything might go wrong and [she’s always thinking], ‘I might need to run away,'” Clapton says. “Even with the longest, most beautiful gowns, she always wears a pair of boots and trousers. I like that sense of, ‘I can play this [queen] but underneath, I can run.'” That explains how she had so much on when she landed with Drogo in the finale. She had pants on under that queenly dress the whole time.

Maisie Williams made a big deal at the beginning of the season that she finally got a new outfit after three years of being stuck in boy’s clothes. But Clapton points out that none of the outfits she wears are of her own choosing. “Unlike Sansa, who chooses to change and express herself, Arya just adopts costumes to the situation or place that she’s in,” Clapton explains. “It’s not about Arya, it’s about the person she’s playing.” It was also a chance to really cement the look of Braavos, and define it from Pentos or Volantis or anywhere else on the continent.

Of course, one can’t talk to Clapton about Season 5 without discussing the Sand Snakes. Everything about Dorne has been highly criticized this season, and the costumes were no exception. Clapton is aware people weren’t pleased. “They’re sexy, it’s hot weather, it’s a very liberal society. [People have said] it looks too B-movie, but it’s supposed to be this rather free place,” she said. “It’s hot and it’s practical to wear light clothing. I just like the movement. Again, they wear suede trousers underneath and boots and I just liked that contrast of very light flowy dresses with really tough bits. When you need to fight you put the tough armor over.”

For more on the outfits of Season 5, check out fashionista.com.

• Published on 06/18/2015 at 11:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 06/18/2015 at 11:00 AM CDT