Margaery Tyrell | 2015

Margaery Tyrell – Purple Wedding Gown | Game of Thrones

Made for : Hamilton Armageddon Expo 2015

Background : I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones around the time when it came out and everyone was saying it was the new ‘must watch’ show and….. I hated it. I refused to watch any more of it.

Fast forward a few years and I was scrolling on Tumblr where I came across the above image of Margaery Tyrell in a wedding dress. In that moment, I knew I had to own that dress. It was beautiful, it was also four seasons in. So purely for the dress, I persevered and ended up falling in love with the show like everyone else.

Things used :

Wig : I brought the base wig from Arda Wigs. It was a lacefront Arwen in light brown. I styled the wig before trimming it. I had a a hair donut at the crown which I wrapped and weaved sections of hair in to making it look somewhat rose shaped. I left two long strands in the front on either side to hang in front of my ears. Once I was happy with how it looked overall, I trimmed the excess length off.

Crown : Made from leftover worbla scraps from my Katniss gown. Painted with silver spray paint and acrylic paints.

Dress : I took some artistic liberty with the shape of the train in this dress. I didn’t like the shape of the one in the show, I thought it looked like a tacked on beaver tail. So I took the skirt pattern from Butterick B4131 to use as the base in my pattern.

I made a mock up of the Butterick pattern in calico and pinned it to my dress form. I then began draping strips of toilet paper (no idea why this was my material of choice), on the dress form where I wanted the bodice to sit. I then transferred the toilet paper pattern on to calico and made a mock up. I pinned the bodice mock up to the skirt in the center front and checked the fit. Then it was on to cutting it from the fashion fabric.
When I cut it from the fashion fabric, I cut the center front of the skirt and bodice pattern as one whole piece so there wasn’t a seam in the middle.

I added shoulder pads in to the shoulder points to help them keep their shape. The dress was lined with bemsilk lining, though the skirt lining only went to the knees. An invisible zip was added to the skirt in the back and hook and eyes were used in the back of the top.

After the base dress was finished, I began creating all the little details that adorn the gown. I started with the vines. I wanted to use leather thonging but my local emporium store was out, so I brought many meters of hemp rope which I braided together using a three strand braid. Because it was black, I spray painted it silver.
While my dress was on the dress form, I placed the lengths of rope on it constantly referring to the reference images I had saved, using pins to keep them in place. I used a whip stitch with a matching thread to secure them to the dress.

For all the little details on the vines I used a variety of different sized metal thorn studs, some of which screwed in place and others I had to glue. I made leaves for the vines out out a black leather jacket that I had spray painted silver. I cut out each individual leaf and glued them along the vines. I used some iridescent sequins as well for some added oompf. Some I left in their flower shape and others I cut in to leaf shapes.

Finally, the roses. I super underestimated how long the roses would take to make. It took my mum and I three days working non-stop on them to get them done.
They started off as rectangle strips, folded in half, the ends sewn together, turned out the right way, bottom edge overlocked, bottom edge gathered and then rolled in to a rose shaped.
A bunch of semi circles were cut from the different grey coloured felts and glued tot the bottom edge of the roses to keep them in shape.
I initially began sewing the roses to the train but I was now in a time crunch having spent so long making the damn things, so they ended up being hot-glued to the train instead. Turns out this was a good thing because the train got stood on so many times at conventions that I don’t think the stitching would have held up. As a result, the dress ended up weighing 5 kilos.

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