Elizabeth's Costumes: The Power of Spectacle, or Spectacles of Power?

Delamoir provides a fascinating analysis of Elizabethan court costume and its vocabulary, and dissects the notions of women's film in relation to the topic. She points out that 'the film's meanings of costume are associated with a modern ideology of the individual, and with the pleasures of consumerism.' Furthermore, Delamoir notes that '[T]he meanings of costume within the symbolic system of the Hollywood narrative [...] obscure the meaning system of Elizabethan court costume, which was about power and empire rather than individualism and identity.'