There’s not really a precedent set for this piece of the costume, as It’s really hard to tell exactly what Drogo is wearing on his bottom half excepting that he definitely has a pelt loin cloth, and there’s some leather in there somewhere. He is definitely wearing trousers, but I don’t really want to if I can help it since this is meant to be female version of Khal Drogo. I decided I’m making a skirt and if all else fails I can put some harem pants underneath.

I found this beautiful faux fur/pelt in my local fabric shop, there were a lot of lovely designs to choose from but overall I thought this one was the most natural and in keeping with what I’ve seen on the show.

So the underskirt I’m making will consist of a pelt loin cloth, and some Pleather strips similar to a gladiator skirt. To make the waistband all I did was get a length of black elastic and wrap it round myself, at a good amount of stretch – you don’t want to cut it to your size without being stretched as the weight of all the things you’re sewing on to it can stretch it and then it’ll be too big when you put it on. Equally, you shouldn’t cut it to fit at full stretch – most peoples shape fluctuates a bit day to day and it could be uncomfortable to wear for a prolonged period. I just doubled up my cotton and put a running stitch through the elastic at the desired point and doubled over it.

Before cutting the pelt I decided what width I wanted it – Drogo’s runs parallel between his legs ending about half way across the thigh. Normally you would take care to cut this fur with the grain, but I want this to look like its come off an animal, not a factory line so I cut it blind against the grain with great results. Remember to cut two panels like this (front and back) and that however long you cut it the panel the back will always end up shorter because of the curve of your backside. You can have a play about with the shape of the pelt once you’ve tried it on.

Once you have these pelts cut you can start sewing them to the the elastic waistband – you need to do this whilst the elastic is stretched, so find something that’s about half the width of your waist/hip circumference to stretch it over…Unless you are lucky enough have a dress form in which case you should use that! I sewed on the front panel first using an overcasting stitch along one edge with the fur side facing the elastic.

Then I used a running stitch along the other edge.

Having done that you can fold the fabric back on itself and finish off with another line of running stitch. I did it this way for the neatest edge at the waistband since I wasn’t sure how much of the pelt you would see under everything else. Repeat this with the back and you should have something that looks a little bit like this…

As you can see, despite it being sewn on to stretched elastic the fur is quite happy on the waistband. Next up are the Pleather strips for the remainder of the skirt. Even though I only bought half a metre of Pleather for the girdle, I still had half left over, so that’s what i used for the skirt. Choose what length you want the rest of the underskirt to be and cut even strips. Once you’ve attached these to the elastic waist band and tried it on there will be gaps in between the strips so it’s a good idea to cut enough for two layers.

Once cut you can arrange these on the waistband – Sew each strip on separately with an over casting stitch on the top edge and a running stitch on the bottom.

Once you’ve sewn the first layer on as above, sew on the second layer overlapping the first – as illustrated below.

With the second layer sewn on the basic skirt is done! You can cut the ends of the Pleather in to a shape if you like or alter the length to suit your needs.

This underskirt can now be embellished. I’m unsure if I like the length of the pelt, so I may cut it off at the knee closer to the time depending on what it looks like with the rest of the costume.