FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
Tudor Era Lyanna Stark
(click images to to enlarge)
Outline the story …
For my entry, I decided to make a Tudor court gown for Lyanna Stark from Game of Thrones. Lyanna had a tomboyish side to her character, so I kept her ensemble simple in both design and color scheme and free of most jewelry. The main focal point of her gown is the embroidered bodice panel, where the Stark sigil of the direwolf is proudly displayed. I also gave the embroidery a more modern and free-form look to it as a way to represent Lyanna’s free spirit and penchant for doing what she feels is right for her. As I worked on the embroidery, I liked to envision a scenario of Lyanna going against her septa's design simply doing her own thing. For the direwolf, I did use some of Michele Carragher’s direwolf design for inspiration, but the rest of the embroidery is the result of my brainstorming and features embroidery from different eras, from a modernized version of Tudor roses and other Tudor-era floral designs, to incorporating spangles that were often used in Georgian era attire. To round off the gown, I created a French hood. The choice of a French hood felt right for Lyanna, as it was considered to be less conservative by displaying the front part of her hair. As decoration, I used filigree brass stampings embellished with hand sewn blue crystal roses to represent her love of winter roses as well as the garland of blue roses that Rhaegar Targaryen had gifted to her.
Outline the construction…
One of my main challenges was time. Initially I had another idea for this entry involving another era and literary character when I first started working on this during Christmas holiday. However when that idea fell through, I had to quickly brainstorm another entry. I developed the Tudor-era Lyanna Stark project in early January, which left me with a little over 3 weeks to work on my entry. I gave myself a total of 2 weeks to work on pattern drafting and constructing the dress and about a week to work on the embroidery. I’m still also pretty new at pattern drafting, using only my bodice sloper and research on seam lines to generate my historical patterns, all of which are works-in-progress that I try to continually improve on over time in my quest to make them more historically accurate. Another challenge I overcame were shipping delays during the pandemic, which eventually inspired me to use materials I had on hand by upcycling large brocade tablecloth and grey shantung curtains for the dress to meet the competition deadline. For my drafted pattern pieces, I used Google as my main resource of Tudor dresses and spent several days of research on seam line placements on my dress form before sewing my mock-up. Once the main dress was constructed, I worked on the hand embroidery, using metallic threads for the direwolf, and cotton floss for the flowers and vines. Pearls and rhinestones were also hand sewn onto the bodice.
Oh this is stunning…!! the embroidery on the bodice is breathtaking and it compliments the fabric so well too! And the overall product is just perfect!
Thank you! Initially I was worried that I would not be able to finish the embroidery in my 2 week time window for this dress, but the entire process ended up coming together a lot smoother than I had initially thought. A bonus in all of this is that I was able to learn and try out some new embroidery stitches as well. 🙂
I can’t believe that you made this lines three weeks. Beautiful work!
Lovely!
I am a huge GOT fan and I think you just made a perfect Lyanna costume! You implemented her character into the garment and the color pallete you used just fits so well. I love the direwolf embroidery. You did a great job and it’s just amazing you accomplished this in such a short time.
this is great ! the embroidery is really cool and the silhouette is super cool !
Gorgeous! I love the embroidery!
Wonderful embroidery and its lovely to see the 16th century brought into the fantastical world.
Absolutely gorgeous.
This is sooo beautiful! <3 Adding the blue roses to the headpiece is a nice touch, and the colour palette is wonderful. Well done! 👏👏🥰