Costume Designer Sharon Gilham Talks “The Wheel of Time” Season Two
- Share via
Moderated by the Los Angeles Times’ Valli Herman, Sharon Gilham chatted about her process on the second season of Amazon Prime Video’s “The Wheel of Time” after a screening at The Culver Theater on June 12, 2024.
The story continues as Rand discovers that, despite his efforts to defeat the Dark One, new and ancient threats emerge, challenging him and his friends from the Two Rivers. With their guide now powerless, they must find strength within themselves or turn to either the Light or the Dark.
Taking over from the brilliant Isis Mussenden, Gilham had to create a new world with new characters and different cultures. Gilham said, “Isis was very helpful and gave me lots of information about what “The Wheel of Time” is. I carried on from where she left off and added my own bits for the new characters and looks.”
The scope of the season, with the main characters in different lands, was a big challenge. “Each character was in a new landscape, so I had a lot to do.” She worked closely with showrunner Rafe Judkins, who urged, “Make sure you use the books as reference.” With the detailed costume descriptions in the books, they had a good foundation. “We also had a local expert, Sarah Nakamura, who had read the books multiple times to give us lots of information.”
Interestingly, Gilham included modern fashion elements in her designs. “I had some fashion references in my initial ideas,” she said. “Rafe wanted that element of fashion, something new for season two, so I was told to go in that direction.”
As the production was in Prague and Morocco, Gilham had to source costumes from scratch. Prague doesn’t have many costume houses, so she got some pieces from Parisian and Italian costume shops.
“So, in the end, we ended up making a lot of their costumes because they were so specific to this particular look that I was trying to create for these women, because in their white tower, there are seven groups of women and each group has a color and they have a function,” she said. The design process was very detailed with each faction having their own colors and functions. “Reds are the police, greens are the warriors, whites are the architects...I had to create a framework of fabrics and silhouettes for these characters.”
With a combination of creative vision and collaborative spirit, Gilham’s work promises to bring “The Wheel of Time” to life in a way that resonates with both fans of the series and new audiences alike.