Shakespeare In Love

Shakespeare in love in an American – British ROM-COM which is directed by John Madden.  It’s the perfect mixture of romance from the Renaissance period. The film shows how love blooms between an already married Shakespeare and an about to be married Viola de Lesseps, Thus inspiring the play Romeo and Juliet. The film’s a classic example of the Renaissance fashion in the 1500’s no wonder it won 7 awards which includes an Academy award too.

Women are dressed in beautifully detailed and profligate. Queen Elizabeth is seen wearing gorgeous heavy embroider gowns with trails, and she wore very elaborative hats which consisted of various kinds of jewels and feathers. Like Queen Elizabeth many women wore wigs. Through detailing, the wealthy class in Britain exhibited their royal status. The one indispensible thing in all women’s closet was a corset (a clothing piece only worn by women to hold their torso and make their figure appear thinner) It was tightly tied around their waists using strings. On the contrary women from different classes were seen wearing farthingale, which is a structured metal object worn under a skirt (this was worn to enhance their buttocks). Poorer women used to dress up wearing bonnets (a hat usually white colored worn to protect one’s head). The royalty also wore a collar made from changeable piece of cloth called a ruff (to enhance one’s neckline). It was generally made out of lace; in case of the commoners they were very simply designed.

When it came to the men a lot of them can be seen wearing bases which were skirts made by adding pleats towards the centre  , which is followed by a codpiece , usually made to separate fabric in the form of a pocket attached to the skirt to cover their private parts. The upper body was covered by what is called a doublet, which is a closet fitted jacket worn by most men in that period. We could see our main lead (i.e. Shakespeare) wore a simple leather one while on the other hand royalty like Lord Wessex wore highly embroider doublets. Frilled linen shirts were also seen. The men wore hoses to cover their legs and then leather boots. Also they wore very weird shaped hats, breeches (puffed pants which are worn with stockings) and pecadils (square flaps at the base of the doublet).

Altogether Shakespeare in Love being the amazing movie that it is  give us a very close look to costumes worn in that period. It is amazing how garments from that period are still in use (I personally own a corset) but before this movie I had what so ever no idea that these pieces of fashion are bought along from the Renaissance time.