The costume vault

This past October, Costume Designer Janet Patterson, passed away. The four-time Oscar Nominee passing was somehow quite unexpected and very much ignored by much of the mainstream media, which is such an incredible shameful thing on their part. As a 19th century specialist, her work is rather brief (restraining itself to movie focused on that period of time). But that makes it no less impressive as it is, as it includes such costume design masterpieces as The Piano  (Jane Campion, 1993), The Portrait of a Lady  (Jane Campion, 1996), " Oscar and Lucinda (Gillian Armstrong, 1997), Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009) and Far from the madding crowd (Thomas Vinterberg, 2015), which I actually included in my  Favorite Costume Designs of 2015 list (read here ). What all of her movies share, and in great part thanks to her, is an incredible sense of realism and sensibility. And, because of it, her work has become one of the best examples that accurate historical cost...

Last time I dove into the complex and intricate world of Game of Thrones,  I focused on how the North, and its culture, was represented and reinforced through the Costume Design (read here ). Today, I am going to continue this series on world-building by looking at how Michele Clapton, the Costume Designer for HBO's multi-awarded show, builds the culture of a kingdom we haven't even seen yet: the Westerlands. Indeed, if last time I focused on the most beloved family of all Westeros, it's only fair I continue this by focusing on the most hated: the Lannisters. Originally, I wasn't going to focus on the Westerlands, because we've never been there on the show or in the books. But then I started thinking and realized that you can create a look that reflects the culture of a place, even when you don't get to see the place. In that case, the look of its inhabitants (which is what you, the audience, will see) needs to speak on its own. And that's exactly w...