The Margaery Tyrell Costume

Thursday, November 27, 2014

This semester's masterpiece: I recreated one of Lady Margaery Tyrell's costumes from Game of Thrones.
She wears this ensemble in the episode "Valar Morghulis" and repeats the vest and skirt with a different scarf and no sleeves in a following episode. She also wears a similar vest made of a different fabric in a previous episode. So, generally a fairly representative Margaery costume!

Here was my main reference image:

And my version of it!

This costume was a labor of love, let me tell you! Here is some info about the different pieces of it.

Skirt: I dyed six yards of 55" white rayon challis, using Evening Blue, Teal, and Taupe RIT dyes. I cut two almost half-circles (I was conserving fabric so I could make the blue scarf for another time) with a waist circumference slightly bigger than mine. I added a thin waistband and even thinner ties, let it hang overnight, and hemmed. This skirt is based on the one from a different one of her dresses, but I wanted to make them interchangeable so I can do other Margaery costumes in the future. 

It's soooo twirly!

Bodice: Again, dyed with those three RIT colors after much swatching. This started out as a white denim. I draped the pattern based on the photo and it underwent MANY alterations. I also draped an interlining pattern (which also served as the lining pattern) and cut the interlining out of a hideous polka-dot denim. There is zip-tie boning in the interlining. The embroidery is all by hand, sketched out based on the photo. I made up the back embroidery based on the front! It fastens at the center with a skirt hook and bar, with a tie to cover it. All the edges are hand-finished. 

Here's a picture of what I did on the back in case that helps anyone out:


Scarf: I already had this fabric (it was an old curtain) which is one reason I ended up making this costume. It was a sign! It's just two thin rectangles, French-seamed in the middle and hemmed on all sides.

Sleeves: I'm not happy with them, honestly! I wanted to use brown elastic cord to "lace" them up but I couldn't find any in time, so they are just tapered bias tubes with elastic at the top. They fall down all the time and I kind of hate them. But they serve their purpose, I suppose.  


I wear it with a rose necklace that was an heirloom (another sign that I needed to make a Margaery costume) and silver ballet flats. In that scene where Margaery visits the orphanage, we see one of her handmaidens lift up her skirt to step over a puddle, and the maid is wearing a ballet-flat kind of shoe, so I figured that was plausible. I've never seen Margaery's shoes.

Probably one of my favorite pictures:


And, finally, I had the camera on continuous shot so I made a GIF of me twirling: 

-Madame Taylor




Maroon Skirt

This one is an oldie that I never photographed, but I figured I would post it. 

This was for a dance performance back in the spring, and most of the dancers got skirts from H&M and such places. I found one but it didn't fit and I figured it wouldn't be hard to make one for cheaper than the price they were asking. 
So, I surveyed Jo-Ann for fabrics that were the right color and would behave right, and they had this nice linen (it might have been a blend, I don't remember) and I bought a yard.

The pattern I stole from an existing skirt I had, which was a jersey knit so when I traced I compensated for that. It's really just a half-circle skirt cut in two pieces with a rectangle waistband. To fit mine on the fabric, I planned to have a center back seam. 

Well, I messed up a bit in the cutting of it and couldn't fit those back panels on the fabric. So, I created a "design detail" in these little triangle insets you see here. I flat-felled those seams for a nice finish.


Then of course I put the zipper on the wrong side and the back became the front, which I don't actually mind because I like having the triangle pieces in front. The seam being in the front irritates me a bit but not, like, a whole bunch. 

The interior of the waistband is hand-whipped down. The non-zipper seam is French, and the zipper seam is on the bias so I just didn't finish it. The center front seam is the selvage. 


The only other thing that bugs me about this skirt is that the interfacing didn't fuse properly on the front waistband so it gets kind of wrinkly. Someday I will go in and fix it.

Overall, though, I adore this skirt and it goes with all kinds of outfits. It behaves well in the washer and dryer, although being linen, it does wrinkle easily (but irons just as easily). I'm definitely considering making a slew of these in different colors!

-Madame Taylor

 
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