I Just Learned This Surprising "Game Of Thrones" Fact And Now I'll Never Be Able To Look At The Night's Watch The Same Way

What's next? Daenerys' dress is actually a shower curtain?

If you watch Game of Thrones then you're definitely familiar with the Night's Watch.

HBO

They're the dudes who guard the Wall and are always grumpy, probably because it's fucking freezing there. Speaking of which, they get to bundle up in these snazzy cape things that look like they're made from direwolves (which is sad to think about, but they totally do).

Anyway, last year, Michele Clapton — who served as the costume designer on GoT for the show's first five seasons — gave a lecture at The Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

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Around mark 27:35, she discusses the costumes for the Night's Watch characters in particular and revealed a pretty shocking fact (not about the direwolves):

"These capes are actually Ikea rugs," she revealed.

We take anything we can. We cut, and then we shaved them,
and then we added strong leather straps, and breakdown which is like a religion on Game of Thrones.

Wait, Michele Clapton says what?!?!

Comedy Central

Clapton also mentioned that the capes/rugs are waxed and frosted to best pair with the scene's landscape. As for the "breakdown", it's apparently the process that makes a costume look aged or worn, and often includes dying, sandpapering, and even grating the fabric.

Obviously, the next question running through my mind was which Ikea rug?? Well, after a lot of research (and impulse shopping, because let's be honest, I got distracted), I think I figured it out.

ikea.com

This is the RENS White Sheepskin rug from Ikea.

How about a little compare and contrast, shall we?

ikea.com

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Ignoring for a second that Jon's hair is barely indistinguishable from his cape, I can totally believe that after cutting, dying, sandpapering (and probably beating the shit out of it), this could be the RENS.

Honestly, at the end of the day, it's not so much which Ikea rugs are used, but the fact that they're used at all.

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That's an Ikea hack for the history books.

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H/T: Quartz