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.
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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. I thought that since Rhaenyra had moved to Dragonstone and is trying to define herself as a true Targaryen queen, that she would lean into her Targaryen heritage. So then I also looked at [“Game of Thrones” costume designer] Michelle Clapton’s costumes for Daenerys, and rewatched “Game of Thrones,” thinking of Daenerys in terms of her trying to reflect her true Targaryen heritage. I used elements of things that featured in Daenerys’ costumes in Rhaenyra’s and Baela’s clothes to try and create this sort of Targaryen aesthetic.
Alicent’s look has gone from tougher-looking fabrics in Season 1, when she rose in power, to a softer look as Season 2 unfolds and she is pushed out of a position of influence.
The first outfit that she wears in Season 2 is tougher, and in fact, we were going to have little epaulets on her shoulders, but it felt too much. But we have the chain linking her shoulders, and it’s her most pious, religious look, and the fabric is a very deep Hightower green. And then we certainly play with the tones of color, depending on what is going on. So when she’s caught with Cole [Fabien Frankel], and then she has to hurriedly put on a robe, that robe is more of a teal color, because that’s more the true Alicent in those tones than the political face of her. So we play with those colors. If she’s being loyal, she’s more in these dark Hightower colors, and then at other moments, she’s in more teal tones.
And then we also played with a language within the embroidery. So this gown that she ends up wearing, the pattern on it is dragons breathing fire at each other, which is Aegon and Aemond, her children, ending up in this battle with each other. And then another gown’s embroidery is like tendrils of weeds and thorns — it’s to signify the trap that she’s created, of her own creation.
What about her outfit in the finale, when she has a secret meeting with Rhaenyra and she is hooded and covered up?
The two of them were meant to represent their earlier selves, so they’re in the same colors as they wore when we very first met them in Season 1 when Rhaenyra came off the dragon in a gray riding outfit and Alicent was in blue. Alicent is in a pale teal color when she rides out in the woods [in Episode 7] — she’s in a much more pale outfit than the true Hightower green. It’s all about the shedding of her facade of how she feels about her own offspring.
What about Rhaenyra’s evolution?
So we start in the first three episodes with a silhouette that is more in keeping with with what she had in Season 1, with the softer shoulders and the fuller skirt, but then underneath she’s got her black mourning [fabric] I fit with the collar. And then she’s got a red dragon-scale dress as well. They’re basically the same silhouette, but different fabrics. And underneath, I’ve got a pleated sun-ray petticoat, which harks back to — or harks forward to — Daenarys. When she comes back from the Grand Sept [where she meets Alicent in Episode 3], the production wanted a different look. She’s changed her mindset, changed her look. So we go into a more Targaryen look, and the hemline is raised. And she’s always in boots. You don’t you don’t see them, necessarily, but she’s always in boots from then on, and then her looks are always suitable for jumping on a dragon.
What’s the story behind the magnificent gown in the finale, where she’s hosting the new dragon riders?
The dress for the dinner was really important for these new these new dragon riders — it says “I’m in charge,” and they would have never been around that kind of grandeur before. So she’s really trying to make a point with what she’s wearing. The epaulet-like shoulders feel like cauldrons, or like armor, or dragon scales.
