Khaleesi Daenerys Targaryen Costume from HBO's Game of Thrones

When my friend bought me an awesome white blond wig from The Five Wits for my birthday, I knew that I had to incorporate it into a rockin’ Khaleesi Daenerys Targaryen costume for this year! I premiered it at New York Comic Con a few weeks ago and everyone told me I was the most authentic Daenerys Targeryen they’d seen all weekend.

I decided to go with one of her Dothraki outfits because I figured it would be easier to do with little to no sewing experience, and I was right – I was able to hand sew all of this in about a weekend, give or take. Here’s all the materials I used:

Brown tweed-like fabric for the top
Brown leather for the skirt (obviously you don’t need to use the real stuff, but I found these scraps that were the perfect size! Fake suede or vinyl will also work, just make sure that it drapes well!)
White suede for the “skirt” (I used fake suede for this)
Gold decorative pieces such as trim and pins (the circle pin on the top I got from Etsy, and the trim is from the fabric store)
Fabric for the gloves – I bought vinyl (which I also used on the skirt) but I ended up using some brown silk instead because it was easier to work with.
Dark brown tights
Boots – Daenerys wears lighter brown thigh-length, but anything sort of rustic looking will do!
The wig! You can order the one I used online at The Five Wits website, but anything very light blond and long will do. If you go on youtube and search for Daenerys hairstyles, you’ll find a lot of great ideas for how to braid the wig.
Elastic cord for the corseted back of the top
Needle and thread, of course!

Once I had all the materials in place, it was surprisingly pretty easy to put this together without a pattern. For the top, I sort of just draped it and sewed scraps together until it looked right, and then attached a braided halter strap. I held the back in place with a cross-cross corseted style by poking holes in the fabric and stringing the elastic cord through it.

As for the skirt, I sewed part of the tweed and the two leather scraps to a long strip of the suede fabric and then tied it in the back – I figured that it would be easier to adjust that way! Then I sewed the trim I brought onto the skirt as well, and ripped up scraps of the silk I’d bought and tied them around my hands for “gloves.”

That was it, really! Once you get past the initial fear of screwing up, it’s a lot easier than you think it’s going to be. If you’re using leather, though, you might want to tape your pieces together instead of pinning it because the holes will show up in the hide.

This was so much fun to wear at NYCC this year, and I can’t wait to wear it again this weekend for Halloween!