What to wear: Dorne

Dreamy suggested that we start a series on the blog of what people would wear in Westeros. Because this means more shopping, I of course agreed.
One of the things that attracts me to Game of Thrones roleplay is the varied cultures within the mythos. They all have some common background and rules, but each area has very distinct customs and styles.
The first in the series is Dorne (obv.), because I'm most familiar with it. I've been playing the Princess of Dorne in SL for years now, from the very first GoT sim on. Styles have changed a lot in that time, and we certainly have more to choose from.

So let's begin!
First off, we know that people of Dorne aren't Caucasian. They're described as olive skinned with dark hair and dark eyes (At least some of them - specifically the Martells) which are the "salty" Dornish, I believe.
There is a lot of debate on what sort of culture you could base Dorne off of. I won't get into that, but I will leave you with a quote from GRRM on what influenced the Dornish culture:

I read a lot of history, and mine it for good stuff, but I also like to mix and match. That is to say, I don't do straight one-for-one transplants, as some authors do, so you can't really say that X in Westeros equals Y in real life. More often X in Westeros equals Y and Z in real life, with squidges of Q, L, and A. In the case of Dorne, yes, Wales was definitely an influence, for all the reasons you cite. But there's also some distinctly unWelsh elements down there. South of the wall of mountains you have a hot, dry country more like Spain or Palestine than the cool green valleys of Wales, with most of the settlements along the seacoast and in few great river basins. And you also have the flavor given the culture by the great Rhoynar influx led by Nymeria. I suppose the closest real life equivilent to that would be the Moorish influence in parts of Spain. So you could say Dorne is Wales mixed with Spain and Palestine with some entirely imaginary influences mixed in. Or you could just say it's Dorne....

One thing we do know for sure, is that George R. R. Martin has stated that Janina Gavankar looks just like Lady Nymeria. She's a huge GoT fan too. You can stare at her beautiful face (which I tried to model Leyla after) in her new video - Waiting for Godot.

I also find it really amusing because I'm a theater nerd and love the play Waiting for Godot.

It should be noted that Janina is of Indian descent. Again, I'm not going to speculate to much on what I think, but we can at least say with some certainty that the Dornish (Sandy and Salty) aren't white. 

So what about clothes?

Well, we've got a few descriptions in the books. 

For men? - "Dornish lords wear silk and satin robes with jeweled belts and flowing sleeves and favor light armor that is heavily enameled and inlaid with burnished copper, shining silver, and/or soft red gold" (Taken from the Wiki of Ice and Fire)

Alright, so we know silk and satin are among fabric choices, as well as jewels, enameled and inlaid metal of warm metals as well as silver.

"Princess Arianne strode to the litter on snakeskin sandals laced up to her thighs. Her hair was a mane of jet-black ringlets that fell to the small of her back, and around her brow was a band of copper suns........(..).. Yet beneath her jeweled girdle and loose layers of flowing purple silk and yellow samite she had a woman's body, lush and roundly curved." - AFfC page 41

So now we've got snakeskin, a jeweled girdle, and brightly colored silk and samite.

"She was sitting cross-legged on a pillow beneath the raised dais where the high seats stood, but she rose as they entered, dressed in a clinging gown of pale blue samite with sleeves of Myrish lace that made her look as innocent as the Maid herself." AFfC page 42

Again, more clinging silk and samite but now with accents of lace.

"She found a cedar chest full of her clothes at the foot of her bed, so she stripped out of the travel-stained garb she had slept in and donned the most revealing garments she could find, wisps of silk that covered everything and hid nothing. Prince Doran might treat her like a child, but she refused to dress like one." - AFfC page 589

Sheer garments!

 All these pictures are found on A Game of Clothes which I check constantly because it's costume porn.
That's enough for now, I think. I'll post another blog with a look I've put together for Dorne, but there are tons already on this site. I try to weave all of this into what I wear, but at least now you know where I get the inspiration from.

Things to remember when dressing Dornish -

• Silk and lots of it
• Jewels mentioned a lot as well as metals
• brighter colors
• Samite (which is silk with metal threading)
• Snakeskin
• Lace sometimes
• Sandals
• Clinging or free-flowing
• Sheerness (Cover everything and hide nothing)

On Leyla:

Hair - LeLutka Vibrato - Coalmine

Headpiece - Illusions - Semeret

Necklace and Bracelet - Kungler's Extra - Berenice Copper

Belt - Illusions - Ninya Girdle

Dress - Bare Rose - Venus Urania

On Dream:

Hairbase - (Milana) Willow-Blacks hairbase

Hair - [Lelutka] Jasmine Hair

Eyes - IKON Lucid Eyes-Coffee

Dress - The Sea Hole-Nouveau Silk Dress

Collar and Cuffs -  ~Soedara~ Nubian Divinity Magic

Headjewel - Zaara Nizam Jhoomar + Tikka