Colour and fabric
Colours can be used to signal emotions or themes to the audience. Red can be used to represent danger or blood, making it a good choice of colour for Lady Macbeth’s costume. If the lighting designer is using coloured gels, you could comment on how the costumes are affected by them. Under red lights, the colour red looks washed out whilst under blue lights it can look almost black.
The quality and look of fabrics can tell the audience if the character is rich or poor. A rich aristocrat would be expected to be dressed in expensive silks with embellishments like jewels whilst a poor character would more likely be dressed in coarser and cheaper material.
The A group of actors within Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The actors are not very good and a source of comedy within the play. in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, described as ‘a crew of patches, rude mechanicals,’ would be dressed simply as labourers. Characters such as Hermia and Lysander would be more extravagantly dressed.
Sumptuary laws
The Sumptuary laws, which were maintained in England and Wales, dictated what people of different ranks could wear until well into the seventeenth century. This included the colour of their clothes. There was even a law passed in 1571 that said anyone over the age of six, other than the nobles, had to wear a woollen cap on Sundays and holidays. The purpose of the law was to support the wool trade but it also made caps and eventually the familiar flat caps, part of everyday dress for the working class. Therefore, one of the things you may be interested in if you are discussing a Shakespeare play is whether the costumes are historically accurate.
