Halloween Is Coming: IKEA’s Instructions for Your Own DIY Jon Snow Cape

Written by

Tara BellucciNews and Culture Director
Tara BellucciNews and Culture Director
Tara is Apartment Therapy's News & Culture Director. When not scrolling through Instagram double-tapping pet pics and astrology memes, you'll find her thrift shopping around Boston, kayaking on the Charles, and trying not to buy more plants.
updated May 3, 2019
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(Image credit: HBO)

Last week, the internet went wild(ling) when it was discovered that Game of Thrones’ wardrobe department uses IKEA rugs as capes. Well, we have good news: the Swedish retailer just made pulling together your King of the North Halloween costume so much easier.

IKEA has released official instructions for the cape hack—in their usual pictorial style, of course. And all you’ll need is a pair of scissors, no allen wrench required.

Called VINTER skuldervarmer (get it??), the DIY starts with their SKOLD dark brown sheepskin that retails for $79 AUD (though you can surely use a white RENS or faux TEJN and dye them if you want).

(Image credit: IKEA)

To be expected, the costume designers at Game of Thrones have a process that’s just a little bit more involved. In a Getty Museum lecture, Michele Clapton, lead costume designer for the series’ first five seasons (who also returned for season seven), talked about the “breakdown”—all the ways in which her team dyed and aged and distressed the rugs and other pieces of clothing to give them that now-classic GoT look. The IKEA capes/rugs are dyed, waxed and frosted to best pair with the scene’s landscape, then aged or worn by sandpapering or even grating the fabric.

“We take anything we can,” she said. “We added strong leather straps… I want the audience to almost smell the costumes.”

This isn’t the first time IKEA has played along when its products inadvertently make the news. Earlier this year, their response to Balenciaga’s $2100 “knockoff” of their 99 cent FRAKTA tote was a tongue in cheek ad about how to spot an original, with such advice as “Shake it. If it rustles, it’s the real deal,” and “Throw it in the dirt. A true Frakta is simply rinsed off with a garden hose when dirty.”