Elizabethan Clothes and Costumes

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The people who lived during the Elizabethan Era were not allowed to wear whatever they like or desired. Their Fashion choices had to be followed by a strict law! The English people chose to establish social classes by the colors they wore and this had an affect on costumes used in theatre. Queen Elizabeth I followed the sumptuary laws, which was only certain classes were consent to wear specific fabric and colors. Therefore in plays the actors could only wear certain colors for their costumes that displayed what role and class their character was in. The clothes worn during this era was a result of Queen Elizabeth’s sumptuary laws, which had an affect on costumes used in plays, and each color a person wore had a significant meaning. First of all, in England the clothes men, woman, and children could wear was dictated by sumptuary laws that were enforced by Queen Elizabeth I. The reason these laws were put in place is because the English wanted to maintain a certain class structure. Queen Elizabeth I declared in the Sumptuary Laws Proclamation “Decay of the wealth of the realm” (Tu...

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