Game of Thrones King's Landing Hair--A Tutorial!

Hair is probably my least favorite part of costuming, yet it's such an important part of costuming. For my King's Landing Dress, I needed to be extra creative with hair. My hair is currently a perfect for my 20s gala dress and 20s tennis dress for Costume College length, which is very much not the right length for my Game of Thrones dress! I also wanted to avoid wearing a full wig, as dealing with a lace front widow's peaked wig just isn't high on the list of what I want to do, plus from Victorian costuming, I'm very used to using hairpieces.

This tutorial will be a little less complete than my average tutorial. Due to the immense amounts of futzing I had to do, some steps aren't photographed. Setting the hairpiece down to take a picture just wasn't an option!

Game of Thrones King's Landing Dress--Construction, Part Two

This post picks up from Part One, which covered the main construction seams and the beginning of the lining.


Here's where we left off, with the addition of the beetle wing embroidery and beading. The main seams are sewn, and the lining is attached to the front edge and side panel. One thing--see that running stitch attaching the front lining? It really needs to be a back stitch. Or machine stitch, for that matter. That front stretched a little too much!



Fold the front lining to the inside. Pin it down the center front edge to give it a little stability, smooth it to the side seam, fold the seam allowance under, and pin it down the length of the side seam.

This is an excellent lining technique for full skirts. It gives you the benefits of both flat lining and bag lining with the disadvantages of neither--the seams aren't exposed as in flat lining, and the lining doesn't hang too freely as in bag lining.

Game of Thrones King's Landing Dress--Construction, Part One

The completed dress can now be seen here!

The Game of Thrones, King's Landing inspired dress has been started! If it looks a little familiar, this is because it's the full version of my Game of Thrones sundress. It's made of green washed silk taffeta, plain weave gold silk, and cotton/silk brocade from Pure Silks. The bodice is lined in the 3.5 oz linen from Dharma Trading. I'm sewing it by hand--they don't have sewing machines in Westeros, do they? :) --using mainly 18th century techniques. When I've finished the dress, I'll write a post detailing my decisions, such as why I decided to hand sew, washing the silk taffeta, etc., but for now, I'm concentrating on construction.

The dress is made of four shoulder to floor panels of silk taffeta, two underarm pieces, and two insets/gores of cotton silk brocade. The bodice is flatlined with linen, which ends around hip level. The dress will be nearly fully lined--everything except the side gores--in the plain weave yellow silk. This lining is why I'm using 18th century techniques. I want all the seams covered, but I want the lining to be attached at all seams instead of hanging free like a bag lining. I'm going to share my pattern as well. Although it is sized to fit me, I hope that the shapes will be helpful.

Part Two--lining and hem--is here.