‘It’s great to dress up a Dragon’

“Hopefully fans will be happy because we’re trying to be as faithful to the original as possible.”

The final episode of House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel, will air on Sunday, with millions of fantasy fans expected to tune in.

Based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the HBO drama focuses on ferocious beasts, battles and family feuds.

Behind the realistic visual effects and complex storyline is a huge effort in production with the show’s costumes winning over audiences and critics.

Emmy award-winning designer Caroline McCall, from Portadown in County Armagh, joined the show in season two and played a key role in bringing the fictional kingdom of Westeros to life.

Fresh from her work on BBC and HBO His Dark MaterialsCaroline said she was “really excited to try bonding a tooth to another tooth”.

“I was excited by the scale of the project and a little nervous when I got the job… [House of the Dragon] “It’s a huge show with an incredible range of costume design,” she told BBC News NI.

“I am very excited to have the opportunity to apply for this job.”

Caroline was hired to replace renowned designer Jany Temime – best known for her work on the Harry Potter series – who she said laid the foundation for the series.

“I was lucky to have a really amazing costume team on board,” she said.

“A lot of the crew already knew how the program worked, so that was really helpful.”

Born in County Armagh, Caroline found early inspiration at Belfast’s Grand Opera House, where stage productions sparked her interest in costume design from a young age.

After studying a foundation course at Ulster University, she began a three-year costume design degree at Wimbledon School of Art in London.

She then trained with the BBC, climbing the ranks in the industry before won an Emmy in 2011 for her work on the TV series Downton Abbey.

This summer, she celebrates 25 years in the film industry, a time when she has witnessed significant changes in her hometown.

Game of Thrones was mainly filmed in Northern Ireland and has created a film craze there.

“I’m quite jealous that there is such an industry now,” she said.

“I think it’s fantastic that it’s so well set up. I have a number of team members from Northern Ireland who have trained on Thrones.”

House of the Dragon is set 200 years before Game Of Thrones and tells the fate of House Targaryen – a noble family with the ability to control dragons.

With hundreds of outfits to oversee, where should a designer start?

“It’s too big,” said Caroline.

“Fans of the show, especially those who have read the books, have very clear ideas about how things should go.

“The politics and economics of these places have changed between our show and Game Of Thrones.

“Dressing people appropriately, essentially in a reimagined Westeros, was quite difficult for me.”

In season two, the houses split up, “so there was a natural reason to redesign quite a few of the main characters,” Caroline explains.

Her research spans “thousands of years of history” as she draws inspiration from cultures including the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Mayans.

“I took all these references and broke them down into what was aesthetically appropriate for each home,” she says.

“For example, the Targaryen style is somewhat brutalist, in terms of decoration and embroidery, more abstract, whereas the style in Kings Landing is more naturalistic.”

With a team of up to 300 people, the costumes are meticulously dyed, printed and decorated, often taking months to complete.

The first season of House of the Dragon, like its predecessor, faced some criticism for its dark cinematography, something showrunner Ryan Condal acknowledged and adjusted.

“We went into season two very aware of that feedback,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

Cinematography is something Caroline takes great care with when creating her costumes.

“Before we filmed, we tested the colors on camera and in the environment they appeared in, to make sure that green was green or blue was blue,” she said.

“Some of the sets are really dark, and they need to be, Dragonstone and Harrenhal don’t have a lot of natural light coming in.”

House of the Dragon is one of the few American productions that continued filming during its run. Hollywood writers and actors strike.

For nearly three months in 2023, writers and actors in the industry went on strike to protest pay equity and the use of artificial intelligence in the industry.

But the House of the Dragon cast was not involved because the show was primarily filmed in the UK under a contract overseen by the UK union Equity, rather than its US equivalent, the Screen Actors Guild.

The show’s writer, Ryan Condal, previously told the BBC it had been a “difficult period”, but a “great honour” to keep the cast and crew.

So what’s next for the designer and Dragon House?

With details of the third season being kept under wraps, Caroline revealed that she will once again be involved in producing the show, which she said will be her main focus for the next 14 months – albeit with a short break for awards season next year, one might assume.

Whether the show can repeat its previous success at the Baftas, Golden Globes or the Guild of Costume Designers Awards is not something the designer is giving much thought to.

“You just have to do your best work and it all depends on what else is coming out… there’s a lot of sci-fi and fantasy shows coming out this year,” she said.

“We shall see.”

The second season finale of House of the Dragon will be available on Sky and NOW in the UK from 5 August.