Game of Thrones season 8: What do the characters’ new outfits tell us?
By Dan Selcke
HBO has just released a bevy of new character posters for the final season of Game of Thrones, which means we get to see if costume czar Michele Clapton has come up with any new costumes for the last six episodes. She’s done tremendous work over the course of the show. What will her swan song be like?
In many cases, it looks like the characters are wearing things we’ve seen before, which makes sense. Not a lot of time has passed between the end of season 7 and now, so not everyone’s had time to make themselves a new outfit, and some probably don’t care. Brienne is wearing the same plate armor Jaime gave her back in season 4. The Hound is wearing the same leather armor he had on in season 7. Grey Worm and Missandei are still in their black Team Daenerys uniforms, and so on. But others have radically new looks, and when talking about those, we have to start with Sansa Stark.
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Not long ago, Sophie Turner said that Sansa would wear armor for the first time in season 8, not full-plate, but protective jet-black leather. “We [had] the idea of it being very protective and she buttons herself up,” Turner said. “I wanted her to have a bit of armor and be a bit more warrior like. She’s like the warrior of Winterfell.” Sansa’s outfit in the season 8 poster is almost certainly what she was talking about:
It’s unlike anything we’ve seen Sansa in before. It’s even quite different than the official photo of her from season 8:
As for the inspiration behind it, it looks to me like Sansa is taking a cue from her mother’s side of the family and embracing the fish scale-type armor worn by her uncle Edmure and great-uncle Brynden:
Tully power!
To me, the other striking new costume is Cersei’s; you can always depend on her to make a statement:
I love the flap that hangs down, the necklace, the bodice…it lives up to the high dramatic standard Cersei sets for herself. It’s interesting that she isn’t wearing a crown, no? And in this photo it looks like she’s wearing red and black, Targaryen colors. I wouldn’t put it past Cersei to wear those colors purely to underline that she’s on the throne and Daenerys isn’t.
Ever since Cersei became queen, she’s been going for an armored look, especially around the shoulders. Unlike with Sansa, we did see Cersei wearing this look in the advance season 8 photos. Check out the contrast between one of the gowns she wore in season 7 (on the left) and the new one (on the right):
We also saw her wearing this number behind the scenes in Dubrovnik:
"The Empress’s New Clothes from freefolk"
From one Lannister to another, things have changed for Jaime since he was wearing splendid Lannister armor back in seasons 5 and 6:
His new armor, seen at both the end of season 7 and in an advance photo from season 8, is much plainer:
That’s the armor he’s wearing in his new poster:
Humble Jaime.
Really quickly, I think Bran is wearing the same thing in his poster that he was wearing in season 7, but it looks bluer in the poster. Maybe it’s the light?
Moving on to Daenerys, we’ve already seen her debut a new outfit in the advance season 8 photos, a black dress with red strips across the upper part of the bodice:
We get our best look at this new outfit yet in the new poster:
She’s sitting down like she wants it.
Hopping over to Jorah Mormont for a second, he’s wearing the same black armor he was in at the end of season 7, but it looks a lot better than the poster. And that looks a lot better than the ratty yellow shirt he was in for six seasons straight. Jorah’s fashion journey has been brief but significant:
Melisandre is another character who makes a statement with her clothes. There’s always red in there, obviously, but the kind of red has changed over the years. When last we saw her in season 7, she was dressed in bold red furs, with little gradation or distraction:
But before that, her dresses sometimes incorporated patterns, or were slashed or splashed with different kinds of red. Below, we can see her wearing such a dress in season 5 (on the left). Her season 8 poster outfit (on the right) is more in this vein; it’s one of her elaborate looks. The new one is patterned with little hexagons, and in this light looks less red than dark purple.
The last time we saw Melisandre she was talking to Varys, who was wearing a new outfit in those advance season 8 images. Let’s compare his season 7 look (on the left) with his season 8 one:
His poster is a little odd. It looks like he’s wearing his old season 7 robe, but this time it’s in black, the color of his new season 8 outfit. He probably has a rack of the same outfits in different colors he takes with him everywhere.
Finally, there’s Tyrion, who’s also mixing and matching. Below is a shot of him from season 7 (on the left) and in season 8:
On his post, it looks like he’s wearing the doublet from season 7, but the coat from season 8:
If you don’t have a brand new outfit, just recombine what you have; thrifty and effective.
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