Dragons. Targaryens, and of course, the infamous Iron Throne. Game of Thrones fans know all too well: Westeros is not a land for the faint-hearted. Enter costume designer Caroline McCall, who took on the herculean task of designing for the second season of HBO’s critically acclaimed prequel House of the Dragon.
With a team of over 150 costume professionals working on the show, Caroline describes stepping onto the House of the Dragon set on the first day as “a real ‘pinch me’ moment”, having to ask herself: “is this really happening?”
Hailing from Portadown in Northern Ireland, Caroline’s decision to study costume design is rooted in an interaction she had at a career’s convention in her teens, where she was told: “If you want to study costume, you have to go to Wimbledon College of Arts”. The rest, Caroline says, is history.
Graduating in 1999 from Costume Design Interpretation (now BA Costume for Theatre and Screen) at Wimbledon College of Arts, Caroline initially landed a place on the BBC Vision placement scheme. Following this, Caroline worked on iconic dramas including The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby and Little Dorrit to designing for period and fantasy shows including Downton Abbey, His Dark Materials, and Shakespearean drama, Will.
With an Emmy, a BAFTA and multiple Costume Designer Guild Awards under her belt, Caroline continues to make waves with her visionary designs.
Caroline speaks to Wimbledon College of Arts about her time studying, work in film and television and her experience of working on House of the Dragon.
Growing up, nobody in my family was in the arts, but I was fascinated by old films and my Mum used to take me and my sister to the beautiful Grand Opera House in Belfast. I was at that very impressionable age, and it was always the costumes that that I was interested in. At home, I was always making things and I started to realise: I want to be part of the theatre world. Film and television seemed like a whole other world that was out of reach but, to me, costume was a tangible thing that you could see as opposed to, for example, sets and camera work.
Well, I chose to study costume, design interpretation because I wanted to learn to make. I never thought seriously that I'd ever be a designer, but I wanted to design through learning all the skills to make. It was terrifying leaving home and going to Wimbledon College of Arts, but it was also wonderful, because when I got to my first class, I was suddenly with all these people who had the same interests as me.
Whilst I was at college, my main interest was in dying and textiles. I did some work experience after I graduated including some small jobs dying and printing. I was very fortunate that my first big job was as a trainee with June Nevin on a BBC comedy drama Randall & Hoprick (Deceased). When I was in my final year, the BBC had a competition called BBC Vision which gave graduates trainee positions on productions for 5-weeks and mentorship for a year.
When I finished the 5-week traineeship, they gave me some paid dailies to go through, which meant I had a bit of money coming in. I was doing some dying here and there and I did a couple of weeks alterations at Cosprop. Then, I got a call from BBC Vision to ask if I would be interested in applying to be a trainee on Guy Ritchie's new film Snatch with Brad Pitt, which I jumped at the chance to do. Verity Hawkes – another Wimbledon graduate - was the designer on that job and she's wonderful. There were only 4 of us on the costume team and after working with Verity on the film, I knew then that I’d got the bug for film and TV.
Downton Abbey is the reason I became a costume designer. Having started off in the industry as a trainee, to working as a standby, or the person that looks after the cast and continuity, I ended assisting costume designer Susannah Buxton on numerous projects since 2003. In 2010, Susannah took on the role of costume designer for Downton Abbey. I worked as the assistant designer on the first series of Downton Abbey, and it was tough. There were only 7 of us in the costume department. It's a massive cast and we didn’t have a huge budget. I couldn’t assist on the second series because I was already working on Doctor Who, assisting Barbara Kidd. Then, Susannah got in touch to ask if I would come back on board, to assist on the Christmas special of Downton Abbey. Susannah decided to leave the show after the special and put me forward as her replacement, which I interviewed for and won. At the time, it felt surreal as I had only been a costume designer for a small film in Northern Ireland and a series of short films for Channel 4. I was really fortunate as you can be an assistant for a really long time and never get that chance to become a designer.
The first episode I designed costumes for was Lady Mary's wedding and I had to fly out to LA and fit Shirley MacLaine, so it really was a baptism of fire. I would never have had the confidence to do it, but everybody else had confidence in me. The director was so supportive and the cast were brilliant too.
I went on to design series 4 before making the really difficult decision to walk away. Downton Abbey was my safe place in a way because I'd known everybody from the beginning and I'm not the most confident person, so I really had to challenge myself and step outside of my comfort zone.
A number of years later, I interviewed for His Dark Materials. I read the books and really immersed myself in that world. Then, I created a lookbook and showed it to the production designer whose eyes immediately lit up as it matched his vision entirely. His Dark Materials is very close to my heart as I designed all 3 series, so it feels like they're my characters. I was so delighted to get a BAFTA TV Craft nomination for it.
You have to interview or pitch for the job - even if you know the director, you might not have a relationship with the producers. Generally, you’ll be sent a script or an outline. I start from there and figure out the time, the place, the status of the characters, their economic status, the climate etc. I try and visualise what I think it should look like and then I put together a massive lookbook which visually maps out how I would approach the characters. Then you go and meet the director and the producer, and you talk it through, and then, if you're offered the job, you go back and start having meetings with the director and the producer about your ideas and how they see the character. It can change a lot when casting takes place because the person's not necessarily at all how you imagined they would be.
It's tricky coming in on a second series of something, because a look has already been established, in this case by Jany Temime – the costume designer for season 1 - so it was more about bringing my own touch to it. With it being a prequel, it’s set in the same world as Game of Thrones, which feels to me like that period of Middle Ages Europe where not a lot changed for quite a long period. Silhouettes didn't change dramatically. Even within the Game of Thrones world, dragon technology hadn’t changed much. Yes, it was set around 150 years before 'Game of Thrones', but just like with the Middle Ages, there weren’t huge stylistic divergences. The production designer, Jim Clay, and I describe House of the Dragon as a period show which happens to have dragons. Dragons have existed in art for thousands of years; they're depicted in so many different cultures and art.
I had to navigate this space where I wanted to be loyal to Game of Thrones while acknowledging that you're in a different time. What’s interesting is you have to look at each ‘house’ in terms of where it stands politically, and how much money they've got. Those dynamics change a lot between House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones. In some ways everybody's in a worse financial state in Game of Thrones. With House of the Dragon, King Vicerys I presided over a relatively peaceful period, but it all kicks off in House of the Dragon.
In my first week, I walked into the Throne Room and that was a real pinch me moment. I thought “Oh, my goodness. I’m standing in front of the iron throne – this is actually happening! There’s the famous throne.” The room was full of all the characters – it was the scene with the petitioners and Aegon’s first time sitting on the throne.
The production is absolutely massive. The costume department is an army. There were 150 people on contract because of the number of costumes we had to produce and to facilitate filming because we were shooting 2 units at the same time throughout the entire shoot. That meant I could have a battle being filmed with huge numbers of army and cavalry and all sorts, and at the same time, I might also have a massive scene being shot in Dragonstone with all the all the Black Council. I think the sheer scale of it is quite extraordinary but challenging.
In terms of highlights, I enjoyed all of it, but I particularly enjoyed the Black Council and the characters on Dragonstone because they've moved away from King's Landing, and it was a way for me to add my own touch and to start establishing how I wanted to portray their Targaryen heritage, being dragon riders. I worked a lot on dragon riding looks. My feeling was that Daenerys was the last Targaryen in Game of Thrones, and so a lot of the looks in this series were harking back to her heritage, which was really fun.
We had 20 weeks for pre-production. While that might seem like a lot, it’s really not. In that time, I have to define Westeros in this time period, and all the different houses. A newly designed armour takes 20 weeks to produce so you have to have those designs ready straight off the bat.
And then, obviously, you don't have everything ready on day 1 of the shoot and the shoot covers 26 weeks in total. I think we started with 1 unit shooting for the first 4 weeks. Then, after 4 weeks, you've got to manage 2 units of shooting concurrently for the whole time. It's important to be able to manage the schedule and the dates of what costumes are required when and where, which can be quite a challenge.
No, not at all. But everyone shares their ideas and concepts so that production design, the art department, the armourer, the effects department; everybody can see what everyone else is doing, ensuring that everything gels as part of one world.
Where we can, we try and help each other. For example, if there can be fabric movement that helps give a sense of speed, we will work with the effects team to give the sense the dragons are actually moving.
And then we work with special effects, stunts and visual effects. For example, we had so many fire rigs and stuntmen burning. That's where we have to collaborate with all those departments, we have to think about the padding that they need, or the fire protection. We have to ensure to make particular costumes fire safe so they can be set alight.
I love period costume. I love the 18th century. I love fantasy too, which is why House of the Dragon is so interesting. With pure periods, you’ve got real garments that you can refer to, which is helpful. It’s similar for fantasy but you have to build a world of reference that fits to the aesthetic that you've chosen for each place. You’ll find in House of the Dragon that each place that they visit generally has different styles and silhouettes.
Well, I enjoyed House of the Dragon so much that I'm going back for season 3, which I am so excited for. I would love to work on a Russian period show – maybe something around the Russian Revolution, or even the French Revolution.
I think it’s important to try and meet people and make contacts, because, unfortunately, that is how the industry works. It's about who you know. Get your CV out there and be prepared to start at the bottom and do whatever you're asked to do. I think it's good to try and work your way through the costume department in different roles to find out what you really enjoy doing. You develop an understanding of how things work, and you really get to grips with the whole process.