'Elizabeth' 1998

As homework, in order to ease us into the rather mammoth task of researching the Elizabethan era, we were asked to watch the film ‘Elizabeth’ starring Kate Blanchett, released in 1998. Due to the films date of release it was quite a modern and contemporary representation of fashion standards and beauty from Elizabeth’s time as a princess and throughout the earliest and some of the most important years of her reign.



Having researched the Elizabethan era further prior to watching the film, I realised there were deeper meanings to certain scenes in the film that had gone straight over my head beforehand. For example, one of the first scenes in the films shows a young protestant woman getting her light auburn hair quite violently cut from her scalp prior to being burnt at the stake. I first assumed the removal of her hair would have been to humiliate the girl and take away her sense of personality, as I had seen a similar scene in an episode of Game of Thrones where the act was carried out for this purpose. However, I found that it was instead to do with the colour of the woman’s hair. In Elizabethan times, red was a very valuable colour of hair to have as it was at the height of fashion, therefore it was more likely to have been removed and then harvested for wig making for those wealthy enough to afford such accessories.



At first my focus was entirely on the Queen herself and the way that she was being portrayed in the adaptation of her time of the throne. Within history her style and her image became her trademark and her portraits were very important to this as they helped her to become somewhat of a ‘royal pin up’ during her era. You can see the relationship between the portraits painted of her throughout her life and the way she was styled based on these images throughout the film. When Elizabeth is shown at her youngest, she has been given a quite a youthful version of the styles worn during the Elizabethans that symbolised the standards of beauty at the time. Her hair is shown as being quite a yellow blonde with warm red undertones, making her at the time a celestial beauty. The lower layers of her hair fall quite straight naturally with the front layers plaited and

pinned softly into buns either side of the crown of her head. The whole look softens her features making her look more childlike, naïve and innocent. Because of her hair colour her skin appears to be naturally very pale, which at the time was a look women were constantly trying to achieve through the use of many different and sometime disgusting concoctions. There are no blemishes or scars on the face which also suggests her youth, only a soft rogue blush on her cheeks and on her lips.  As well as this, her eyebrows and eyelashes are very fair as a result of her hair colour, making them both look almost none existent. However, women during the renaissance would pluck out their brows in order to make the forehead appear higher than it really is, as it was believed that the taller the individuals forehead, the wiser the person was. This first look has some similarities to Elizabeth’s look in the final scenes of the film, however some features have been exaggerated in a way that makes her look a lot older, harsher and more powerful.



Throughout the film I came to realise that colours of individuals clothing, hair and makeup were used to express and emphasize the divide between classes. Queen Mary is shown in her few scenes during the film wearing all black, a colour that suggests power, most probably used intending to reiterate her valued position as the Queen of England, over powering the protestant up rise. The Queens advisors were also clothed in black garments; this could have been in order to lead the viewer to making the association between the Queen and these individuals or it could have to show them as having almost as much power and control as the Queen herself. There is a dissimilarity of the dark clothing Mary wore compared to the garments worn by Elizabeth throughout the film. The scene that I first noticed this in, Mary was wearing black as she always did, while Elizabeth was wearing a sapphire green dress, a colour that held quite some religious symbolism during the renaissance period. It was also a colour of the very wealthy, as only those with power and high status could afford to wear green, re-establishing Elizabeth’s high status as Queen/Princess. Mary is also depicted with no eyebrows and therefore a high forehead, as I mentioned before a high forehead was believed to be a sign of being very knowing, suggesting that she wanted her people to see her as a knowledgeable and wise dictator; this being one of the very few things that both Mary and Elizabeth had in common in terms of styling.



All of the extras in the film wore clothes in colours that were fitting to their character and the occasions as well, even if they were just part of the background. For example, peasants were always shown wearing clothes in colours of beige and browns, in shabby and rough materials, whereas those individuals attending occasions with Elizabeth all wore bright colours and a large amount of jewellery but never anything quite as lavish as Elizabeth, showing her status over others.    

The scene in which Elizabeth is draped in the ermine fur and wearing a gown of gold was one of the first scenes where I really began to notice her transformation. This is a portrayal of the gown Queen Elizabeth wore in one of her most famous portraits, painted in 1585, referred to as the ‘Ermine portrait’. Despite her still having a very loose and natural hair style, quite similar to the one in her very first scenes, paired with neutral makeup keeping her looking very youthful; the costume is so much more elaborate compared to everything else she had worn so far in the film enforcing her new position as Queen. In the renaissance era, it was believed that an ermine

would die before allowing its pure white coat to be besmirched. When being chased by hunters, ermine would supposedly turn around and give itself up to the hunters rather than risk soiling itself. The throw around her shoulders is made to look like ermine fur dyed with black spots, and her gown made up of various shades of gold, as gold is a color that often represents wealth and wisdom, suggesting that these are reasons for her place on the thrown.



This is one of the last scenes that we see Elizabeth looking youthful and naturally beautiful, as in a scene that follows this, all of her hair is cut off and she makes a transformation. From this point onwards she wears peri style wigs that are adorned with jewels and accessories, tangled into intricate plaits and buns, braided with contrasting ribbons of greens and gold. In truth, Queen Elizabeth actually had alopecia and this was her reason for wearing wigs, as years of wearing elaborate hair pieces that were the height of renaissance fashion at the time permanently damaged her scalp.



The final transformation scene is where we are really able to see the Queen Elizabeth that we are used to seeing in her portraits and imagery. Her hair is of a darker, more vibrant red, shaped into a rounded, voluminous up do, covered in pearls to represent her virginity. Her hair line is strong and defined, making her forehead appear a lot larger. Her face is completely white and her brows near to invisible, with a rouge blush on her cheeks well as on her lips. She wears a blue gown in this scene in a shade similar to that of the Virgin Mary’s, paired with many pearls in order to reinstate her name as ‘The Virgin Queen’ as well as showing her value for the catholic religion. This final adaptation of Elizabeth’s look made Kate Blanchette seem almost alienesque and completely unrecognisable as herself. The pure white of her skin is another symbol of her purity in her marriage to God and her devotion and loyalty to her religion. As part of her transformation, when Elizabeth cuts off and as  her hair, similar to what nuns would have done during this era, and the application of the heavy white lead makeup suggest her purification as during this scene she also states that she wants to ‘become a virgin again’.