The style of Conan the Barbarian was based on production designer Ron Cobb's artwork, with Ann & John Bloomfield working closely with Cobb to bring Robert E Howard's fantasy epic to life. According to Cobb in an interview, the design sense was heavily inspired by various historical cultures, primarily the Mongols;
'I wanted to invent cultures you hadn't seen before, drawing on applied anthropology more than applied history. Like Howard, we realized we would have recognisable cultures. You could always tell, though he would rename them, you could always tell they always Romans, Persians, Mongols, Vikings, just with different names. John imposed of course, his favorite culture, the Mongols, and we sort of did that, primal Mongols and tried to make them as unusual as possible, like they were the people that later became the Mongols. And certainly Viking and Nordic cultures. .'
The Mongolian and Viking influence can be seen clearly in the costumes, which incorporate studded leather, heavy furs, animal skins and chainmail, cementing the film's ahistorical 'primitive' look. This can be seen clearly with the various armor suits worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular Conan, as well as Gerry Lopez as Subotai.
Note: While I know that Ann & John Bloomfield designed the costumes on the drawing board (with Ann being uncredited on almost every film John worked on) and Ron Cobb also designed the armor suits in production art, I don't know which costume house or propmaker fabricated the costumes or armor.
Some costumes designed by Bloomfield & constructed at Bermans & Nathans for earlier productions were reused in
Conan, so possibly some of the peasant extras were in costumes loaned from Bermans, but as for the main players I cannot say! So far I'm still researching, so this will be updated eventually.
The Bloomfields also created more grubby costumes, that were still expertly crafted by with inscriptions and patterns woven into them. A good example is the dress worn by Cassandra Gava as the 'Wolf Witch', adorned with markings similar to cave paintings.
Similar outfits include the stitched dress (again adorned with markings) worn by Nadiuska as Conan's mother at the start, as well as the makeshift armor sported by Mako Iwamatsu during the final battle sequence.
In his other scenes, Mako in his guise as 'Wizard of the Mounds' wears a tattered robe of orange and red fabrics, fitted with grey rope-like tubing and stone-like discs. The fabric's texture gives the appearance that it was cobbled up from plants, fitting with the Wizard living as a hermit in the wilderness.
Max von Sydow stars as King Osric, wearing a fur-lined robe in line with the 'Mongolian' inspiration, the robe itself stitched from coloured leather segments making it resemble a tapestry.
Photo of Von Sydow with director John Milius, showing the costume under the cloak.
Another costume was made for Von Sydow for a deleted scene where Osric is murdered by his own guards; this costume, otherwise unseen for decades outside of a few publicity stills, consists of a white robe with with fur trim on the shoulders and cuffs, as well as tassles around the bottom.
Osric's guards sport fur-lined tunics and sets of leather and bronze-plated armor, finished with leather robes twisted around; the armor is worn with fibreglass helmets that have been specially designed to have shields that flip in front of the wearer's eyes.
When Conan meets King Osric, he sports a tasselled robe in different hues of red.
In the same scene, Gerry Lopez's Subotai sports a tunic made of a red patterned fabric with white fur lining.
Accompanying Conan and Subotai is Valeria, played by Sandahl Bergman. For the role, Bergman wore many many wide-shouldered leather tops and revealing bodices, a design element that was copied in the costumes of several low budget ripoff 'sword and sorcery' films of the 1980s. Perhaps the most notable version is the brown leather top and loincloth sported by Bergman in an earlier scene.
Bergman's other warrior costumes were mostly constructed out of other fabrics, though I can't remember when or where that white and grey wide-shouldered top comes from.
During the meeting with King Osric, Bergman sports a studded top worn with a cape made of shiny coloured fabric trailing from one side of the chest, almost making it appear like a dress on-camera.
Valérie Quennessen star's as the princess Yasimina, Osric's wayward daughter; the various dresses designed for Quennessen exhibit a more Middle Eastern or West Asian influence - Orientialism in fantasy/futuristic costume design, that old friend - with her first dress being made of a slightly translucent material, and worn with a tiara.
Noticeably, a variant of the dress, made of a slightly different material and a different crest on the waistband, was made for Quennessen; judging by the more 'brutal' looking crown and fur cape, I'm assuming this is after Conan made her his bride in a deleted scene for the end credits.
During the film's finale, Quennessen is dressed in a bikini top and skirt decorated with jewels and glitter, also worn with a gorgeously glittery cape as well.
James Earl Jones stars as Thulsa Doom, introduced wearing an elaborate set of armor that was mostly designed by Ron Cobb in the initial production artwork; the helmet, chestplate and shoulder pads are sculpted with snake motifs, and are worn with stitched grey leather trousers and a heavy furred cape.
Thulsa Doom is always flanked by his lieutenants, Thorgrim and Rexor, played by Sven-Ole Thorsen and Ben Davidson respectively. During the attack scene that acts as Thulsa's introduction, Thorsen sports a studded leather tabard, while Davidson wears a leather tabard with red fabric stitched on and metallic rings cut into it. Both wear specially sculpted helmets, with Davidson's in particular very much evoking Nordic carvings.
In their next appearance (decades later in the film's own story), Thorgrim and Rexor sport two different sets of armor. Thorgrim sports a black segmented armor set with an anvil motif engraved on the front - he wears this same armor set in the final battle, albeit with a spiked helmet.
Rexor actually sports a similar set of armor for the final battle (pictured in the first image); however, during the ceremony he sports an ornately sculpted armor set resembling Thulsa's, worn over a stitched leather jacket with rings cut into it, evoking his first costume.
Back to Thulsa's costumes though, in his quarters Thulsa sports a green robe coated in pearls, worn with a black gown covered in silvery circle markings. Another, more simple, black robe was also made, but it's barely seen in the film and isn't terribly interesting a design so I neglected to include it here for now.
Thulsa's most extravagant costume is his high priest robe, which was designed by Ann & John Bloomfield to heavily evoke snakes,
according to John; '
There was a very strange costume we did, for James Earl Jones’ character, who was the baddie in the movie. He turns into a snake on screen and we created a coloured silk robe with blues, greens, silvers and browns in it that made it look like snakeskin writhed around his body.'
Note that even the waistband is painted and sculpted to resemble reptilian scales! The high priest robe is finished off with a silver headdress adorned with red glyphs. All the other priest costumes have similar glyphs embroidered into their headdresses.
Rexor sports a similar robe as part of his cult duties, made of black fabric with white and black stripes around the shoulders and silver trim on the sleeves. The sleeves are fitted with snake-shaped fasteners, and the cuffs and headdress are lined with a snake-shaped glyph pattern.
The snake glyph pattern lining also appears on the robe worn by the priest that witnesses Thulsa's demise, as well as on the Phrygian-esque headdresses worn by the lesser cult members; the lesser members wear more simplistic robes and orange sashes compared to the priests.
Ron Cobb designed the armor worn by Thulsa's soldiers, again heavily reinforcing the Mongolian inspiration, though the armor plates also resemble scales, emphasizing the reptile motif of Thulsa's cult. The armor is worn over a white tunic and pantaloons.
Several extras playing Thulsa's servants also sport black quilted tabards with fur lining, as seen in the second image; these are actually reused costumes that Bloomfield had designed (and had constructed at Bermans & Nathans, most likely) previously for the godawful Peter Sellers swansong The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu.
One of the film's most striking costumes is barely even seen in it! During the final battle, Sandahl Bergman appears again as a warrior spirit, wearing a set of sparkling silver armor, completed with a helmet adorned with wings to evoke the Valkyries of Norse legend. A silver cape was made too, but this was never seen in the film.
The film's final shot is one of Conan as a king, wearing a set of black and gold armor with a wide-shouldered cape over the pauldrons - the armor was reused in
Conan the Destroyer two years later, minus the cape.
