Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for The Wheel of Time Season 3.
While all of us who have been watching The Wheel of Time for the past three seasons have been swept up in this epic fantasy, such a feat wouldn’t have been possible without the people involved both in front of and behind the camera in bringing the world itself to life. From stunning direction to impressive production design, all of these elements come together to make The Wheel of Time feel like both a fantastical realm and something not so far removed from our own possible future.
Among the talented artists working on the Prime Video series’ third season is Sharon Gilham, who first joined The Wheel of Time in Season 2 and has since gone on to help shape some of the show’s most defining looks. Ahead of the show’s most recent finale, “He Who Comes With the Dawn,” which dropped on Prime Video last week, Collider had the opportunity to participate in a long sitdown with Gilham over Zoom to break down many of the season’s most incredible, genre-bending costumes. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Gilham delves deep into the thought process and creation of looks including the Age of Legends, the Aiel Waste, the Royal Family of Andor, countless alternate futures (including one where everyone’s evil!), Moiraine’s (Rosamund Pike) hat, Lanfear’s (Natasha O’Keeffe) shift from white to black, the two characters’ finale battle gowns, and so much more.
COLLIDER: I’m assuming some of the costumes are probably close to the original concept, but that’s not the case for all of them?
SHARON GILHAM: The process can be quite a lengthy thing, and most of the time everything does go through the same sort of process, which is that you get the script, and you read the books, and then you start thinking. You start looking for references according to the cultures and so on, or if it’s a fashion reference or whatever, and the silhouette and all of these things, and the mood boards. Everything goes to that point. In a show like this, you’ve always got lots of other people who you need to consult, the director and the showrunners and so on.
Then you get the fabrics. I’ve realized, looking at some of my pictures that I took during the making processes, that I put fabrics on the mannequin a lot just to go, “Does this work with this? Does that shape work with that shape?” It’s really draping. It’s like pattern cutting, where you drape fabrics to see how the shape of the fabric works on a human form. I did that so much.
I did it for my Moiraine costumes as she did her journey through the Waste, and all those incarnations that all had to have a separate identity and a separate color theme. She has these two and a half different Waste costumes where her blue comes back. I found a fabric that was like an amazing sort of chiffon layered with a brownish print that was like the earth of the Aiel mixed with the blue of Moiraine, the sky. Then you drape that on a mannequin, and [Rosamund] would come in for fittings, and I’d be like, “What do you think of this?” She’d be like, “Oh my gosh!” Because someone like Rosamund [Pike], you can really show just fabric draped, and she’ll get it. She immediately understands where you’re going. That part of it is actually a really important part of my process of making. Then you take the fabric to the cutters, and then the cutters start to make patterns and play, and so on.
When you go into the fitting process, then things change, because human beings have bodies and that has to work for them, and they have to be able to move. Then it goes into the breakdown, and that’s also so important because that’s where they really come alive. Even sort of simple costumes or costumes that you wouldn’t think have breakdown. They’ve all been washed, they’ve all gone through that process. I’ve always said it, but The Wheel of Time is this gritty, real world that you feel is in a parallel universe. It’s not fantasy-fantasy that’s, like, science fiction. It’s real. That process of the making and the concepts and so on happens for every character, big or small, in one way or another.
This season, there are a lot of alternate futures that may or may not happen, and a lot of them are just for one scene. The first instance of this is Egwene’s Accepted test, where we don’t see the whole thing, but we see the possible future of her as the Amyrlin Seat, with Nynaeve and Elayne as fully realized Aes Sedai of their respective Ajahs, hunting down a Rand who’s gone mad. I love the callback to that red jacket in that scene. That’s the one from Season 2, right?
GILHAM: Exactly. Covered in blood.
‘The Wheel of Time’s Accepted Test Costumes All Boasted Different Forms of Armor

Image via Prime Video

What was the whole design process for those Accepted test looks?
GILHAM: As you say, there were quite a few scenes like that in this season where they’re hinting at things that the book really does know are there, but there are people who haven’t read the books who don’t. But it’s an enormous moment for Egwene to be the Amyrlin Seat and to be in this conflict with Rand, this incredibly dramatic and heartbreaking moment. There’s no way I could not do those costumes 1,000% justice. When you’re working with groups, a tableau like this with the six of them together in Tar Valon, you really need to see their identity and their own personality coming through those costumes.
Egwene’s costume is the top banana, the top of the top, as the Amyrlin, so it has to be gorgeous gold fabric. It was inspired by an Alexander McQueen dress, which is kind of edgy, which is Egwene. The print on it is the flame of Tar Valon. When I was talking to Rob [Goodwin], who made her armor, we wanted her to be grounded because Egwene is grounded. She’s not Elayne. She’s not a princess. She’s a real person who knows what her roots are. So, her armor has this insignia of the flame of Tar Valon, but it also has all those roots woven through it, so you can feel that she’s grounded. It’s kind of beautiful-ugly. It’s not classically beautiful armor, but it’s got a real strength to it and power to it that is very different from the other two.
Then Elayne, as I said, she’s a princess, so her armor is almost more fantasy. It’s probably the most fantasy-style armor. That’s what’s so great, as well, about having a huge team like I had. You can ask different people to interpret the idea of armor, and they will bring their personality to it, as well as your direction and my explaining of what the characters are. You can see the rose of Andor incorporated into her armor as well. So, you’ve got all those cultural references that are important to her, but the whole feeling of it is lighter and more classic princess-like. She’s got those two green fabrics weaving around her body because Elayne isn’t just a princess. She’s much more than that. She’s a really complex person. She’s not in some big princess frock. She’s in something that has a strength and an energy to it, as well.
Then Nynaeve, how can we approach her costume so that it’s different from the other two? She has these armored pieces, but I wanted to just do another take, basically, on armor. Armor traditionally is metal, but it’s also it’s quilted. People used leather for armor, as well, a long time ago, and so I thought it’d be interesting to quilt that silver leather to make it feel like it could just be metal. She’s a healer, so her costume is going to be yellow. She has a connection with plants and flowers, so there’s a flowery pattern in the fabric, but it’s not girly, it’s not soft. It still has a real strength. There was also both gold and yellow, so I was a bit like, “How am I going to make it different?” But I think we achieved a real unique identity for each of them while still keeping all of the important elements that we needed to.
‘The Wheel of Time’s Andor Royal Family Looks Explained, From Morgase’s Collar to the Lioness Imagery

You mentioned the Andor references in Elayne’s armor. This is the first season the Andor royal family has been introduced to the show, and not just present-day. There’s the big flashback with Morgase, who’s pregnant with Elayne in that scene. Even just the entrance of the royal family, the queen’s silhouette is so striking. It feels very Elizabethan, with the big lace collar. Was that the inspiration behind her big entrance dress when they’re coming into the Hall? It feels like Morgase trying to make a statement even while she’s standing there rolling her eyes, which is a really funny juxtaposition.
GILHAM: Yes, exactly. This is Andor. This is the royal family of The Wheel of Time, so it’s got to have real pomp and circumstance to it. Morgase is not going to just come in on her own. She’s going to have an entourage. She’s going to have ladies in waiting, she’s going to have servants. She’s going to have the soldiers and people carrying the banners. Everything was done for show. It was all like, “Here they are! Blow the trumpets. They’ve arrived.” So, her costume is absolutely a big dramatic show of force, showing her power.
The color is Elizabethan. I kind of pushed it slightly because, for Andor, the influences are supposed to be English Tudor, so the Tudor rose comes into that as part of Robert Jordan’s iconography for Andor. So, there was the idea of the Elizabethan collar, the Tudor collar. That’s what that was referencing. But also, the beginning of that idea was about her being the Rose of Andor. She is the rose, and this is almost like the vase that shows off the rose, so that she is absolutely the focus of attention. We played around with this shape a lot because it’s quite a big thing. Olivia [Williams] was very good about saying, “It’s fine. I know it’s a bit heavy, but I can wear it.” I wanted it to be a really dramatic image, for her to have this incredible showing off of her character, and then the rest of the dress is almost like her; it’s quite straight. It’s kind of her locked into her responsibility and who she is as the Queen.
The ladies in waiting’s costumes were also similarly straight but flared out at the bottom, a bit like a vase, and their headdresses were made of lace. They were supposed to look like flowers, as well. So, the whole thing is about pomp and circumstance and royalty, and the iconography of the rose — the red of Andor, the lace in everything. We printed lace onto fabrics to follow the banner bearers. Their costumes have all got lace printed onto the wool instead of using real lace, which is partly a financial thing, but it’s also partly The Wheel of Time world, where you could do anything. We can change this. No one’s ever printed lace before, so let’s play with that idea. Then the lioness is the symbol of Morgase, so she’s got these two metal embroidered lionesses on her hips. The boys, Galad and Gawyn, have got those stylized lionesses’ roaring heads, huge, bigger than their own faces. Everything she does is about her. It’s about the spectacle and the drama.
For Lord Gaebril, Rafe [Judkins] said that he should look like he’s at the Met Gala because he wanted him to be showing this side of himself, which is really flamboyant in contrast to Rahvin. He pushed and pushed. He’s another person that I used the mannequin for to dress. He was, at one point, going to have a huge collar and a massive train. I wanted him to look like a bride who had to look like the groom. So, his costume moved around a bit, but that was the idea: that he looked as dramatic as she did, but she still holds the floor.
OK, What’s the Deal With Moiraine’s Hat? ‘The Wheel of Time’s Sharon Gilham Has the Details

Image via Prime Video

One detail I was really amused to see a lot of people talking about is Moiraine’s hat she wears in the Waste. I believe Rosamund said she established that Moiraine just picked it up, bought it from somebody in the Waste as a last-minute thing because she thought she was going to Tear. They’re not expecting this last-minute decision that Rand makes. In terms of deciding what kind of hat she would have, did you end up going through a couple of different versions, or was it pretty easy to find the one for her?
GILHAM: Wearing a hat is a very personal thing, and it is important that it suits your face. We also talked about her having a sort of turban at one point, which would have linked a bit more directly to the Aiel crowd. There was always the option of a hood, but we’ve seen that a lot on Moiraine, and we’ve seen it a lot in fantasy. I thought it would be nice to have something that wasn’t that, to try something new. And yes, we tried several different hats. In fact, we had that hat made somewhere in Cape Town, South Africa, by a local hatmaker. We had several variations of that made, as well. In the end, this was the shape that Rosamund liked. I put the little porcupine quill in there because I thought it was just a nice little touch that made it feel like somebody had made it and considered it in the way that people all over the world make things with their hands, and they decorate them, and they always have since time immemorial.
We love the idea that she bartered it for something on the journey. I did make sure that everybody else had something covering their heads, apart from Rand. I think he does at one point, but everybody else, you have to have something on your head in those temperatures, because otherwise it would just frazzle. It was a practical thing, as well, but it had to fit into the world. The fabric that it’s made of, which is kind of Hessian, feels appropriate for the Aiel world. It doesn’t feel like it’s a straw hat that’s been steamed and put over a hat block or something.
Sharon Gilham Dives Into the Details of ‘The Wheel of Time’s Alt-Future Forsaken Looks

When Moiraine’s having her visions, there’s a shot of everyone in the Ways, and they’ve all gone evil. They all look so dark, heavy metal, a bit gritty. It’s so fun to see it because we’re never going to get our heroes looking like that. I’m sure you all had so much fun coming up with what everyone’s Forsaken alter ego would look like. What was the inspiration behind designing those alternate universe evil looks?
GILHAM: Well, first of all, they did love it, because when are those young people ever going to be in those outrageously mad costumes, which are also quite futuristic, or contemporary, really, for us? I did what I usually do, which is I Googled, researched, looked around for different silhouettes because I knew that’s what we were going to see. It wasn’t going to be lots of detail, although there is lots of detail on everybody’s costumes, as usual. Again, it was responding to their characters.
Egwene’s character, with those big clunky boots and lip jewelry and shorts, she’s really expressing herself as tomboyish, shall we say. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but she’s feisty. She’s not sexualized. She looks amazing, but that’s not what she’s interested in. Nynaeve, again, the front piece, the long piece that hangs down at the front, that has flowers and herbs and so on, and stylized cutouts. That’s where that came from. It’s supposed to look like it’s something to do with her world as a Wisdom, or her rationale, and what she is, who she is. Rand’s armor had dragon scales on it, and gold inside the shoulder piece, and a gold and red glow coming out of it that was also significant.
Perrin, with the dreadlocks, was moving towards the wolf thing, but I didn’t want to go with fake fur or fur with him. I wanted everything to be very clean. He’s very tall, but it also just gives him more height, more shoulders, in a way, I suppose, sort of preempting his armor down the line. Then Elayne has all of these metal feathers. Again, there’s a sort of lightness and an elegance to it. They nested it with this skirt that has different shapes at the back, like a fishtail skirt, so she still feels very feminine. Then Mat is such a character — Dónal [Finn] is such a character — and I wanted to do something that was a bit androgynous, and so the idea of putting him in a skirt just made sense really quickly. Because he would do it, and he would enjoy it. Then the top piece is a little bit too short. It’s slightly falling apart, like the armor is deliberately hanging off, and it’s sewn together with big stitches and falling off one arm, and the makeup is a little like Mat trying to do a rock star, not quite getting it, but sort of getting it at the same time.
That was the thought process behind them all. It was such good fun to do and such good fun to keep adding to it, even though, again, it’s like Egwene and the three girls; the scene was so short, but you can’t not do it. You either do it 1,000% or you don’t do it at all. That’s the way I feel and felt. It’s a lot of extra work for my team, but I just think it’s an opportunity. It would be such a shame to just do a half-hearted version, because it just wouldn’t work.
Sharon Gilham Explains How ‘The Wheel of Time’s Age of Legends Costumes Carry Through to Present-Day Aiel

With the Age of Legends, any time we get a chance to go back into that futuristic world, it’s really what makes the show feel more like sci-fantasy. Before the Breaking, everything was so different. When it came time to go back to that world for the Rhuidean episode, with characters like Rhodric and Mieren before she became Lanfear, everything does feel very elevated but also very straightforward at the same time.
GILHAM: Exactly. That’s really the point. The Age of Legends was a time of simplicity and beauty where things were functioning, and the Aes Sedai were dressed in black and white. Their lines were very long and simple. Everything was plain fabrics, beautifully cut, draping, very elegant. Mierin’s costume, actually, was supposed to be a lab coat. That was the idea. So, what is an Age of Legends lab coat? Again, it’s just all of these things so that you see that connection to our contemporary world, and it doesn’t jump, but it feels appropriate. It feels authentic, and it feels really clean. Because I think that’s what we all kind of hope is that our future will be simple. Things will have been simplified. All this mess will have gone away, and we’ll just have gone back to basics, which is straight, clean lines, white, big beautiful, simple buildings. That place that we shot in was so incredible, and it had such a heart to it, and I think that was reflected in the costumes.
Rhodric’s costume, and those servants in that scene as well, those costumes refer back to the Aiel, all the time, all the way through those Rand visions of his past. There’s always a connection to the cadin’sor, the clothing that the warriors wear. But again, it’s all very elegant. It’s all very long. All of the arms are very extended. He’s got those trousers that are sort of part trousers, part skirt. They just make him look, from the waist down, really long and column-like. Serene, I think, is the word.
Sharon Gilham Breaks Down ‘The Wheel of Time’s Skin-Showing Tanchico Costumes

We can’t talk fashion without talking Tanchico, which is its own brand-new world this season. That whole landscape really does feel very pirate-inspired and lawless. Anything goes. You don’t know what’s going to happen when you walk down the street. It’s great to see these characters that we know in outfits that we just don’t expect to see them in — including a fun, flirty, looser side to even Nynaeve.
GILHAM: Every place that they go to, they’re in disguise. You have to find a way that makes it feel like they actually really do fit into that world, whether they like it or not. Mat, obviously, totally embraces it because he loves the seedy side of it. That’s his absolute happy place. He’s got that big jacket with all the frou-frou bits hanging off that Mat would have chosen. There were lots of options in the shops that were much more conventional, and he would have gone for that.
Elayne, she’s still in this princessy-type kind of shape, and her turban and her veil are made with this vintage scarf that I found. It’s very old, semi-transparent fabric with old sequins on it, and it was falling apart, which is also very appropriate for Tanchico. It’s a nightmare for the standbys, because it kept ripping and having holes in it. But it was also very delicate, and so it felt like it was very appropriate for Elayne to be wearing something that was so delicate and fragile-looking.
In Tanchico, people show their flesh, they show their skin. Elayne did it. Mat’s doing it, showing off more chest. Nynaeve is totally out of her comfort zone to show any parts of her body. That is just not what she does. She’s not interested. So I was like, “What can I give her that isn’t just really low cut?” Because she wouldn’t do it. She just would say no. So we came up with the idea of showing her shoulders, which already is so outside her comfort zone. When you see that still that was posted a while back with Mat wearing that veil with all the beads on it and she’s behind it, you could see by her body how uncomfortable she is because she’s showing her shoulders, and to her, that’s just outrageously rude. It’s so much of herself that she’s showing that she wouldn’t normally. So, it was great fun to do that and to find fabrics.
The fabric that her costume is made of is really out there. It’s very dramatic, that fabric. That fabric, by the way, I went to a vintage shop in London when I started prep, and I bought a piece of fabric this long, just like that, and I just loved the pattern and the print. It was actually three-dimensional, had embroidery on it, as well, and I took this piece of fabric to Lily [Bailie], who’s the graphic artist and printmaker, and I said, “Could you create this fabric in meters?” And she did. She scanned it, and she played around with it, and she created a pattern that was a repeat pattern, and then she made it in several different colorways. We could do so many collections of so many of the cultures from this show, and sell them, and create a green version and that black and orange version, a pink version. So, we created that fabric and therefore we were able to duplicate it. We were able to play with the patterns to get the maximum impact for Nynaeve in that scene, but she still sort of seamlessly fits into Tanchico.
There’s definitely some finale looks I want to talk about, including two striking ones for Lanfear. One is that white silky outfit that she has in Tel’aran’rhiod. We’ve really seen her this season in the Tel’aran’rhiod moments with Rand in these much softer looks. You’re not sure if she’s doing it as a way to manipulate him, but at the same time, it does feel like she’s a little more stripped down when she’s alone with him. That dress does feel like the culmination of her being at her most bared.
GILHAM: Yeah, absolutely. That’s the first proper Lanfear costume in white, and white is her color. She is from the moon. Her reference is the moon. I know that there have been comments previously, like, “Why is Lanfear never in white? She’s meant to be in white.” Storytelling-wise, we’ve kept her in black and silver a lot because it just makes it very clear that she’s coming from the dark side. I guess it’s maybe a bit heavy-handed for the fans of the books, but it’s a storytelling device. I do think as this season has progressed, you do see different sides to her. You do see the Mierin side, and you do see her conspiring with Moiraine. You see these different sides to her that you never thought you’d see. She’s not purely bad. That’s the whole point, obviously, of The Wheel of Time.
But that scene with Rand, it’s in that woodland. It could be a beautiful setting for both of them, and it’s really important that you see their love for each other and this possibility of the future that they could have had or could have. And yes, it’s a wedding dress. It’s not a wedding dress, but it could be a wedding dress. It is actually a pair of trousers. It’s a jumpsuit, so it’s still got a bit of an edge to it, even though it’s soft and transparent. I wanted it to look as if it was literally just floating around her body. It’s those layers of organza, a couple of layers of organza that have these tiny lines radiating out of her center that are in fabric, with the other layer underneath, both incredibly fine layers of fabric, very semitransparent fabric. You feel like you could see this human being through it. You can see this person is still potentially good and vulnerable and honest and open, and that was very much the idea behind that whole design. So, it was the color, finally getting Lanfear in white in a way that’s unexpected.
We did also play with lots of other ideas of using fabric to create the One Power swirling around, but because there’s always a stunt scene or something else that happens, you can never completely fulfill that desire to create a costume that’s in my head, and maybe in Natasha’s head, because it just doesn’t work in the scene. But that’s okay. So, we stripped it right back down, which, in the end, I think works much better because you see her skin, you see her fragility. She’s very pale, Natasha, and so the whole thing feels sort of luminous and beautiful and yet really delicate.

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Judkins also discusses which moment he fought to keep from happening and what Rand’s final scene sets up for a potential Season 4.

I feel like it’s no coincidence that after she and Rand have that scene, and he basically dumps her, one of the next scenes we see her in is with Rahvin, and it’s after Moghedien has gotten to Sammael. It’s striking and black, she’s wearing a headpiece and really dark eye makeup. Was the intent to show she was at her most vulnerable with Rand, and he rejected her, and now she’s just going full evil now?
GILHAM: It’s an exaggeration, that dress and the shoulders. We’ve been building the shoulders all the way through Season 2 and then into this season, and those shoulders are sharp; you could hurt yourself. You could stab yourself on them. Karen Ferry, who made her costume, used thermoplastic inside that costume, which is rigid. It’s not just some kind of interfacing that gives something a strength. It really makes the edges sharp.
Then the headdress, I don’t know if you can see it in that scene because it’s very dark. I’m going to do a show and tell of that, as well, at some point, because Rob, as always, is always coming up with amazing ideas and concepts. I said, “Can we include the moon somewhere in her headdress?” We had that idea of a crescent moon shape, and it’s like, “Yeah, that’s nice, but we’ve seen that,” and it’s quite gothic, and I don’t really want to go down that route. Then he came up with this idea of it being a moonscape, so the surface of the moon has been screen-printed onto the leather so that it looks like craters. It looked uneven, the finished shape, even though the shape is very solid, rigid. Then I wanted to put those chains around her neck that are like jewelry, but it’s like chains holding her down — a very strong reference and image to her power and her strength, and her intentions, even, of, “What can I do? How can I get my revenge?”
‘The Wheel of Time’s Sharon Gilham on Why Sevanna Is the Lady Suroth of Season 3

Image via Prime Video

We haven’t really talked about Aiel fashion. The clothing all looks very distressed across the board. The palette is very consistent. Sevanna, however, feels like the closest character to couture in the middle of the Aiel Waste with that huge headpiece. Even the Alcair Dal scene, everybody’s got to come and make a statement.
GILHAM: When I first started was Season 2, when we did the three Maidens of the Spear, Aviendha and Bain and Chiad. I remember being on set and Rafe was talking to me about it, but I was in the process of designing, and he said, “It’s really important that we get this right, because this culture is going to really feature in Season 3.” He was talking to me about the practicality of carrying all the weapons and everything. Then between us, me and Rob came up with the idea of the armor pieces and leather and so on.
When Rafe said, “That’s going to really feature in Season 3,” my heart kind of sank because I love color and I love different fabrics, and I was like, “A whole culture that’s just beigey desert colors. Where am I going to get the inspiration from that?” But in fact, it’s amazing how, so often, when you’re given quite a restricted palette or a restricted brief, how incredibly creative you can be within that brief. So, when I was designing the Aiel, right at the beginning, it was a big brainstorming session for a couple of weeks with the leathers department and the cutters to come up with some ideas for the looks for the different clans, as well as looks that the people who live in those places, the actual clothes that they’re wearing, because I didn’t just want to put them in rags. I wanted it to be considered, to have an actual style.
With some of them, I was thinking, “Well, if you travel, and you live in the landscape, where do you get your inspiration from for what you’re wearing?” Because we’re all influenced by the places that we live in. We dress according to the climate and so on, and they travel. So, the idea was that the Shaido, because they’re supposed to be darker, would have camouflaged darker colors in their costumes. Also, in the Golden Bowl scene, you need to see the Shaido as separate from the Taardad. You need to see that they are two clans clearly, even though they are wearing similar shapes. So, that was the idea. The Taardad, I thought if people were traveling a lot across the landscape, they’d be thinking about the contours of the landscape, and that would be reflected in the way they create their clothing. They weave their clothing like the contours, like lands moving.
Then we played with a couple of ideas for other clans. One was that some travel to the wetlands, and they might find green leaves, and then they might put the leaf on their clothing and the leaf leaves a shape of a leaf once the sun bleaches it out. When we came to doing the Golden Bowl, I didn’t have time to do every single tribe in that much detail, which I would have loved to attempt. I didn’t have time, so it was really in instructing and working with Hayley McCready, who’s my supervisor, who’s amazing, to really give those clan chiefs an identity, and that you feel they have come from somewhere else. The Golden Bowl is supposed to be thousands and thousands of thousands of people, and obviously, we didn’t have thousands and thousands of people, and so the way we could indicate and tell that story of them coming from different clans is through the clan chiefs. It was very important that they had their looks, and likewise, their Wise Ones also had to have very individual looks. My whole point about The Wheel of Time is that every character matters. Everybody is considered. When you have a really good crowd team, who are addressing people, every person is a character. It doesn’t matter how lowly they are or how high they are, they’re all a character. They are absolutely so much a part of making it feel really real.
With Sevanna, we were doing the fittings with Natasha [Culzac] in South Africa, and Rafe was like, “Eh, it’s not really working.” And then he said, “Did I say to you that Sevanna is supposed to be the Suroth of Season 3?” And I went, “What?!” [Laughs] “No, you didn’t say that.” It was like, “Whoa! Okay.” So that’s where that spiky costume with the porcupine quills came from — Moiraine already had one that was sort of Easter egg-y in her hat. I said to Rob, “Come on, we’ve got to make something really dramatic. What can we make that’s like some kind of jeweled collar, but really aggressive looking?” And then the headpiece was made by another amazing person in South Africa, who made Moiraine’s hat, actually, called Tink. She’s a costume props person, and she worked with Rob to create a headpiece that would echo the drama of that neckpiece.
‘The Wheel of Time’s Sharon Gilham Reveals the Hidden Message Inside Moiraine’s Finale Dress

You’ve already spoken about Moiraine and how, this season, there’s more and more blue that makes its way into her costumes. I’m assuming that’s what paves the way for her finale dress, which she’s wearing in arguably one of the more violent scenes of the show in the clash between her and Lanfear. It’s also interesting that it’s a fight scene where they’re both wearing dresses, which is not a thing that you see very much. The fact that they’re both wearing such stunning gowns while they’re trying to kill each other is just such a great image.
GILHAM: We set that in motion in Episode 1 with all those Aes Sedai and their couture outfits, whacking at each other. You can’t not put Moiraine in something beautiful and elegant, and you can’t not put Lanfear in something dramatic and elegant. It is really good fun to be able to create costumes that you could have in a photoshoot, but you could also have in a fight scene. There are also constraints with that, obviously. With Moiraine, if she hadn’t been fighting, she would have had sleeves, she would have had loads of fabric blowing in the wind, and all of that. But again, sometimes, when you are constrained or you have a very tight brief, you have to think, “What are the things I can do with this costume that’s going to give it drama and give it lots and lots of character?” As I said, the blue starts coming back in, and by the time it’s there, that blue is about as blue as you could get, like zingy blue. It’s also because it’s going to look amazing in that landscape. That color looks so beautiful against the sand and against the rocks.
Likewise, the fabric that Lanfear’s dress is made of was made in Switzerland. That fabric’s got metal woven through the fabric; it’s like molten metal. She is so furious that she’s almost turning to liquid. It’s very strong. It’s like armor made fabric. But they have to be able to move their arms, and some of the stunt doubles were also on harnesses, so everything has to function really well in a fight sequence, but it also has to look absolutely stunning from a distance and very clearly separate one from the other and make sure you can really see who’s who.
With Moiraine, the blue was the thing, but also, I was like, “She’s got to have something else. She can’t just be in a beautiful blue dress.” So we came up with this idea. I found these references to armor that had semi-disintegrated from museums. I can’t remember what culture it’s from, unfortunately. I need to find that out. But I love the idea of this armor that’s very fine, but because it’s Moiraine, because it’s magical, it has a power, it has a protective layer. It’s also a beautiful thing, as well. It’s part of Moiraine’s elegance and style.
Again, I showed this to Rob, who’s done all the amazing leather pieces. I said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could have some text in this,” because I always love the idea of words in costumes somehow. So I was like, “Rafe, what is Moiraine’s rationale? What is the thing that she has written on her tombstone, written on her heart?” There’s this text from the books, which is “Remember and heed, it is time, and I must do what must be done.” Those lines, we had them transcribed into Old Tongue, and then Rob created a graphics file, and we laser cut the leather with that text written on it, but the text is mirrored. One side would be the text, and then it’s flipped so that it ends up just looking like a pattern. Then more of the text is layered on top and layered on top and layered on top. Within that armor is her belief in everything.
When I told Ros, she was like, “That’s really fantastic,” because it’s so meaningful to an actor when you give them something that you’ve really thought about and is so meaningful to the character and so important to the character, and I think written ethos, written texts are very important to all of us. Every day, you have a mantra, you have something that keeps you going, and so that was the idea behind that. That armor is beautiful, but it’s also so much more than that.
‘The Wheel of Time’s Sharon Gilham Reveals Which Costume She Was Devastated To Lose During Production

Image via Prime Video

When I mentioned that I was speaking with you, fans obviously had questions about all the looks that we’ve talked about, but in particular, knowing that multiple versions of these costumes are being made, and a lot of them to be worn in a fight scene: which one were you sad to see destroyed and which one were you happy to be rid of?
GILHAM: That’s such a good question. Sometimes you do work on things where you’re like, “Oh my god, that was so complicated. I just would never want to see that thing again.” There was one in Season 2, I can tell you, that afterwards, I was like, “Oh my god, never again!” But this season, something that I actually enjoyed seeing destroyed, and I love seeing the poster photographs of, is the Liandrin costume right from the beginning in the cold open, where she’s got scorch marks on it, and she’s got blood in her mouth. There was just such a sense of satisfaction at how dramatically awful that looked by the end of that scene, because she kept going like some kind of zombie apocalypse, coming back and still keeping going. I love the way that breakdown happened.
I am such a fan of breakdown. Also, Moiraine’s costume going through the rings of Rhuidean, and how that looks with all those salty patches and stains. It really tells the story of what she’s been through so clearly and so dramatically with all the salt on her skin. Even though we don’t love the character, the burning of Eamon Valda was devastating just because that Whitecloak armor was such a labor of love in Season 2; it seemed almost sacrilegious to burn it. We did make a version of it for the fire, but nevertheless… Happiest to be rid of? In the same way I couldn’t choose my favorite, I also wasn’t happy to say goodbye to any of them. I loved doing them all! The least happy to be rid of were the costumes that were only on camera for a very short time, like Egwene’s Amyrlin vision and the heroes as Forsaken.
All episodes of The Wheel of Time are available to stream on Prime Video.

The Wheel of Time

Release Date

November 18, 2021

Network

Prime Video

Showrunner

Rafe Judkins

Directors

Sanaa Hamri, Ciaran Donnelly, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Thomas Napper, Maja Vrvilo, Wayne Che Yip

Writers

Amanda Kate Shuman, Dave Hill, Rohit Kumar, Justine Juel Gillmer, Celine Song, Rammy Park, The Clarksons Twins, Katherine B. McKenna