Museum pieces: the props and costumes of 'Game of Thrones'

There’s no doubt that it’s all a show, but trust me: it works. The craftsmanship on display in these props and costumes deserves this display. While marvelling at everything from spoiled little Joffrey Baratheon’s gleaming suit of armor and Jon Snow’s travel-worn cloak to Jaime Lannister’s severed hand, I couldn’t find a fault. There was no zipper or seam that revealed it all to be a sham.

Costume designer Michele Clapton has said that 99 percent of the armor and costumes are made at the show’s studios in Belfast, Northern Ireland by a team of armorers, embroiderers, weavers, dyers, leather workers, and more. They mostly use authentic materials like chain mail, hand-weaved fabrics, custom-made leather, and metals like brass and steel when making the show’s wonderful clothing and armor, and it shows. But all of that effort would be for naught if the costumes and props looked brand new. There’s a separate team with the sole task of wearing down the clothing made for the show. As Clapton told The Hollywood Reporter last year, "You spend two weeks breaking down, patching, dying, repatching. Then you trash it, age it, then trash it again and repair."

Beyond the truly intricate embroidery, the natural wear is perhaps what impressed me the most. Dyes were faded, armor looked as if it had gone through the toils of war, and even the wildlings’ tools looked as if they had spent an eternity in the snow-swept plains beyond the Wall. Fittingly, however, Joffrey’s armor looks hardly used at all.

Considering the effort put into all of these details, I couldn’t help but think of the nameless artists who carved the backs of their sculptures even though they were destined to sit atop the Parthenon, out of sight. With these costumes and props, which are so easily overlooked, there’s a similar sense of pride in doing the job right. Even if we can’t see every link of chain mail and each incredible embroidery on screen, that attention to detail is what makes Game of Thrones what it is.

Game of Thrones: The Exhibition will stop in Mexico City, Austin, Rio De Janeiro, Oslo, Toronto, Belfast, and Vancouver. The exhibit left New York last week, but following stops on the tour will be much larger. For more information, visit HBO’s website.