Small Council: What was the best outfit from Game of Thrones Season 6?

The costuming on Game of Thrones has always been top-notch. What was your favorite outfit from Season 6, and why? Check out our compilation of the year’s best outfits, read our takes, tell us yours, and vote in the poll!

DAN: There were some quality outfits from Game of Thrones Season 6, but I want to talk about one I don’t think was lauded enough: the vest-and-cape combo Tyrion wore when strolling through the streets of Meereen in “No One.”

As Ani pointed out in her roundup of the best outfits from the year, Season 6 marked one of the first times we’d seen Tyrion look comfortable in his clothes. He’d never looked quite right in Lannister red, as if he were trying to break away from his family even then. But unlike in Season 2, when he was Hand to a terrible king, Tyrion believed in what he was doing as the governor of Meereen, and his outfit reflected that. He looked fashionable and at ease in his preferred vest-and-belt combo. And when he added the cape, he looked damn near regal. Purple is the color of royalty, but this rich green feels very right for Tyrion. It’s dignified, but also a little left-of-center. Just like him.

Also…uh…I like the little gold button knobs on his vest. Look, I don’t have an expansive fashion vocabulary, but I know what I like when I see it, and I like this.

COREY: Game of Thrones did seem to elevate its fashion game in Season 6. Tyrion, Cersei, and my pic for best-dressed, Jon Snow, all seemed to have procured new tailors. For Jon, it was a combination of leaving the Night’s Watch and reuniting with Sansa that led to his awesome new outfit. The hybrid samurai/Stark family armor he wore throughout the second half of Season 6 was downright badass.

It wasn’t extremely different from the Night’s Watch armor we saw him wearing for the first five seasons, but the subtle hints of color and the throwbacks to Ned’s armor were all welcome additions. Not only did it give Jon a different look and feel as he progressed back into the real world, it also looked extremely functional for the wars to come.

We’ve seen some spoilery pics of Jon’s new outfit in Season 7. A bit of an upgrade was to be expected for a newly crowned king, but hopefully Jon hasn’t thrown out this one. Something tells me he’ll have a few more battles to fight before the series is over.

SARAH: Obviously the best costume of the series was Jon Snow’s birthday suit. Am I right, ladies? Am I right, gentlemen? Poor Kit has worked hard on those sinewy arms and ripped stomach, and he deserved a chance to showcase them in a work of fiction that wasn’t Pompeii.

Obviously, I’m kidding. As nobody has had the chance to claim Cersei’s incredible doomsday dress, I’m snatching it off the table. Eagle-eyed fans will notice that the season finale saw Cersei in two different (but similar) black leather numbers, but it’s the dress she wears as she watches the Great Sept of Baelor explode that has the most impact. It’s the first outfit of this style that we see on her and, like most of Cersei’s outfits, is telling us a lot about the character.

Cersei is clearly emulating her father with her outfit. The choice of the black on black brocade, the strong shoulders, and masculine cut all indicate that Cersei is ready to assume a position of power, and is no longer prepared to play the dutiful woman. The color represents her grief, as she has lost her father and two of her children (at the time), but it also represents an inner deadness. The fact that she wasn’t remotely surprised by Tommen’s death, and that she wore this outfit simply to stand by a window and enjoy her unspeakably destructive actions, speaks volumes. She is sending a message to the people of King’s Landing, and to the viewer, that there’s nothing she won’t do to hold on to the one thing she has left: power.

Props also go to Sansa for her skillfully designed Stark dress, and to the Waif. Her ‘Evil Queen from Snow White as the old beggar woman’ cosplay was on point.

KATIE: The symbolism of the Starks’ wolf sigil tells us a great deal about the family. Not only does the wolf stand for family, it also promotes personal power and self-control. The remaining Starks have a significant amount of practice in this, as they’ve all learned the importance of self-preservation during their time apart.

This is what makes Sansa’s hand-stitched wolf gown so striking. With it, Sansa returns to her Northern roots. No matter what family names have been forced upon her since, she will always be a Stark in heart and nature. Throughout the series, Sansa has endured solitude, grief, and abuse, but she’s been shrewd and quietly brave regardless. Her one moment of rashness in the Season 1 finale, when she nearly pushed Joffrey from the catwalk, was superseded by more prudent survival tactics. She did as she was told, and spoke out when she could. Sansa’s modus operandi has been to reunite with her family, and it’s this that has driven her to keep living. The desire for her family—or her pack, as it were—speaks to the wolf in her. Still, she has had to put herself first in order to reach such a reunion. Now that she’s home, she can once more focus on putting her family back together.

In Season 5, she tells Myranda, “If I’m going to die, let it happen while there’s still some of me left.” I have no doubt that Sansa would have died rather than continue putting on masks. No longer is she willing to hide behind false identities. Her handmade wolf gown exemplifies this shift. She’s not a Lannister, and she’s not a Bolton—she is Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and she wants everyone to know it. This draws a lovely parallel to Arya’s journey in identity as well. In Season 6, both sisters reclaim their name and home. Sansa’s dress is akin to Arya’s declaration to Jaqen, “A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell. And I’m going home.”

RAZOR: This topic really isn’t my bag. Usually, I look to our fashion expert, Ani, and ask her to tell me what I’m thinking in regards to what looks good and what doesn’t with Game of Thrones fashion. “Hey Ani, what’s that thingy he’s wearing? Oh, a doublet you say? Cool, now I can sound semi-intelligent, thanks!” Anyway, I suppose I could give the old college try, so away we go!

My favorite Game of Thrones Season 6 outfit was the samurai-type armor worn by Jaime Lannister in Episode 608, “No One,” where he leads the siege of Rivverrun. However, the armor was really on display in Episode 610, “The Winds of Winter,” when he and Bronn rode to the crest outside of King’s Landing and beheld the smoking ruins of the Great Sept of Baelor.

Jaime’s armor throughout the six seasons of Game of Thrones has evolved, as has his overall look. When first we saw him he was in the white cloak and golden armor (and the long golden hair) of the Kingsgaurd. In Season 4, after he returned home, minus his sword hand, he donned the white cloak once again, but the armor changed a bit. And finally, after being stripped of his white cloak by Tommen and the High Sparrow, Jaime put on the armor of House Lannister, armor that his own father once wore. That’s my choice for the best outfit of Season 6.

RICHARD: Wow, what great choices. My first selection would be Cersei’s Dark Queen outfits, but since Sarah already handled that with aplomb, I’ll dig around a little deeper in the Westerosi pret a porter. Dan has selected an interesting topic here, especially because GoT Season 6 witnessed the departure of Michele Clapton, its costume designer for the the first five seasons, and the arrival of Emmy Award winning (for Rome) April Ferry.

I’m going to go with the little bear here, Lyanna Mormont, because her costume fits her personality so well. Yes, she’s a huge fan favorite. (She is going to eventually marry Jon, right?) But although we’d seen several relocated Mormonts before Season 6 (Night’s Watch Lord Commander Jeor and the Essos-exiled Jorah), we hadn’t gotten a glimpse of how they dressed at home.

The Lady of Bear Island’s stout soul is well-wrapped in simple and powerful Northern black. She wears a surcoat of black bear fur and a black leather gorget over her black bodice where the only concession to color is an embroidered tan stripe. Her long black gloves hide the smallness of her pre-adolescent hands, while her black skirt and thin leather belt match in pattern and complete her somber ensemble. This 10-year-old leader of House Mormont is an old, serious soul, and her costume is perfectly matched to who and what she represents in Game of Thrones.

ANI: OMG so many to choose. So many many many…But I’m going to go with Margaery, who died as she lived—wearing an outfit designed to signal visually where her loyalties lay. This was a gown that was performance as much as it was fashion.

Here’s the thing about Margaery, since we met her back in Season 2: her outfits show her allegiance. In Season 2, her blue and green dresses (the “House Tyrell costume colors”) were accessorized with gold and brown, the colors of the House she had married into. The moment Renly died, the brown left her wardrobe and she wore only House Tyrell colors, even after becoming engaged to Joffrey, a sign she was not submitting to her new husband, but willfully repping House Tyrell all the way. (That was true straight through to that first glorious wedding gown.) But her fear got the better of her when she married Tommen, as she wore full Baratheon colors during Season 5.

Now, in Season 6, she puts on a different kind of performance—that of the “Sparrow Queen,” as it were. Even when she tries to go back to the House Tyrell colors for her grandmother in their final scene together, the neck is high, the sleeves are long, the cut demur. But if someone were to make a “Royal Queen” version of the grey rags the High Sparrow and his followers wear, it would be exactly this. The gown she wears at Cersei’s trial is a brocaded silk, but thin like rags. It’s so thin it might have been see-through if it wasn’t so dark, like the dinge of the High Sparrow’s rags. She came to stand by the High Sparrow’s side and watch as Cersei was brought low, and punished for all that she had done. She was there to be the rich woman’s image of the High Sparrow’s justice and to take ownership of ruling King’s Landing in the name of the fanatical church, once the final Lannister in her way was deposed.

Instead, she died wearing a dress that was not her in any way, but the role she was playing. She was a gamer through and through, right to the end.

The outfits on the poll are roughly arranged in the order in which they first appeared this season. We tried to stick to new outfits for Season 6, but feel free to discuss any in the comments.