For my final year degree project, I devised a design brief taking a piece of 13th century Icelandic literature as inspiration. "The Saga of the Volsungs" was taken and adapted for a three part television series for streaming services, aimed to capture the audiences of shows like "Vikings" and "The Last Kingdom", though it seeks to challenge preconceptions regarding the fantasy genre, the Viking age, and women's roles in these spheres. I designed this project to straddle the line between historical drama and fantasy- two genres which often intersect.  

 

 The key themes drawn from the plot centre around the female characters- foresight, witchcraft, familial honour, women bearing arms. Focussing on these themes re-centres the narrative around several remarkable female characters, dispelling the all-too-common focus on men’s stories in historical/fantasy media. The female character centric approach to this project explores how history, myth, feminism, and audience interpretation can work together successfully through the visual medium of costuming.

 

A second key area of research is the incorporation of Iceland’s unique landscape into the costumes. “The Saga of the Volsungs” is technically a product of ancient ethnicities stretching across Northern Europe and even parts of Asia, however I argue that the late Medieval Icelandic provenance of the text imbues it with uniquely Icelandic qualities. The saga format and certain socio-cultural aspects found within the text make it an integral piece of literature to Iceland’s national identity. The unique, epic moodiness of the Icelandic landscape matches well with both this interpretation and the tone of the text. I explored incorporating aspects of the Icelandic landscape into my costuming as a signifier of the cultural importance, visually building the characters into the country’s land as though they were borne from it.

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Out of the ten costumes designed, I chose to make for Signy, a queen caught between her family and treacherous husband's greed. Her costume shows a contrasting colour palette to represent the opposing forces within her life, and textiles work replicating Icelandic lupin and forest textures. I also made Brynhild's costume, a fallen Valkyrie I chose to visually associate with burning, volcanic textures. 

 

Through these combined influences I hope to have challenged audience assumptions concerning historical fantasy TV costumes. Audiences should intuit the significance the female characters have been given and should reflect on how history, media and art continues to ignore these fascinating stories.