Cersei Lannister: Red Dress

Photography by John Nettles Jr. and other

2019

Why I chose to make this costume:

I love the Game of Thrones costume design, and I had always wanted to make at least one dress from this show. Cersei has such an iconic wardrobe throughout the show, and I chose to make this costume to dress up with my friends at Dragon*Con 2019.

Thoughts on this costume:

It’s so fun cosplaying a truly terrible character! When my friends did this group at Dragon*Con, I thought we’d maybe have 6 people, but they surprised me and we had 15 people! When we went to the Marriott to hang out together, we ended up gaining even more individuals who posted up with us, took photos, and nerded out over our favorite moments of the show. It truly was a great reminder of what cosplay is all about. Props to my friends for being willing to be my fake cosplay husband and fake cosplay twin lover and to my actual husband being extremely supportive of us being absolute menaces!

Fast forward to Captain’s Comic Expo 2020 (yes, we squeezed one con in before the world had to shut down that year). My friend Luke allowed Virginia to borrow his Joffrey outfit, so her and I could be a menace of daughter and son together for an afternoon, and the photos our friend John took will forever be some of my favorite photos in cosplay.

I did run out of time (as one does) before the convention to do all of the major embellishments for her dress, and one day I may sit down and revisit that portion. But it is not this day. And overall, I’m very proud of the way this dress turned out.