For my costume design project I decided to take regular Macbeth and put a Roman, Dark Ages spin on it. I chose this specific time and place because it personally interests me and I thought it would be an awesome concept to turn Macbeth from a knight to a Spartan warrior. The Dark Ages were a time of economic and cultural deterioration within in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire. Therefore, these conditions would have a major effect on how these characters would dress in their given situations. My first and second costume designs were chosen to portray the character of Macbeth in the play.
My first rendering design is of Macbeth when he is still a faithful knight under the rule of King Duncan. To follow through with my Roman theme I decided to make him into a Spartan warrior. For the cape I selected a thicker red material so that it would be more durable and flowing when being worn on stage. In addition, I chose the color red specifically to symbolize authority, since he is the head knight to the king. For the actual armor section of the outfit I chose a thick grey, metal looking plastic to give the armor look without having the weight of regular metal on the cast member.
I used the same red material as the cape to make the belt that is fastened around his waist. I did this so that it would have the same effect as the cape did. By making his belt gold, it shows that he is the highest rank in the infantry. I gave Macbeth a skirt to imitate a classic Roman warrior outfit. The skirt is made out of a thick, soft leather material to give the old age leather effect. I picked a reddish brown color to fade into the cape. The small gold plates at the top of the skirt tassels would be made of a thin, malleable plastic so that it would easily fasten to the pleated fabric.
To make sure that no one saw through the flowing tassels I decided to put an underskirt underneath it. For this I used a simple white, cotton fabric to assure comfort to the cast member wearing it. The white also symbolizes the purity and goodness that Macbeth had before he met the witches and help murder King Duncan. I added a prop dagger and shield to show what props I think would best represent the costume on stage. I used color pencil to accurately shade the design renderings and to add vivid color to be able to bring the costume to life. His costume is nice and of high quality because, during the Dark arriors were close to the king and were usually rich and part of the high end of society. My second rendering design is of Macbeth after he met the witches and murdered King Duncan. I got my inspiration for this piece from Julius Caesar and a regular looking king and mixed them. To create the long robe I picked a soft cotton to signify the luxury that the king had. In addition to this it is very comfortable to the cast member who would be wearing it during a performance. To represent a flowing and regal atmosphere, the cloak materiall selected was white.
In order to give the character a majestic look and intensify the idea that he is now king, I used a slick, black velvet material for the giant cape type article of clothing. I took the color black because by now in the story he has become greedy and with power and black to many people is a symbol of evil and darkness that would represent his greed. Around the characters waist would be a golden twine belt. I used the color gold to help convey that he is now of king status. A matching crown would be put at the top of the person’s head.
The crown would be gold to match the belt; this gives a pleasing look to the outfit. The gold crown is also made out of leaves because that is a classic roman crown. Macbeth again has a dagger by his side but this time it is for protection against people that would want to kill or overthrow him. In addition to that, the small dagger is also black to match the cape. In the Dark Ages the king could have anything he wanted so I chose only the best for his costume design. For my third rendering design I went with a different character, a witch. A witch in Roman times would be on the opposite end of the social scale.
This means that the witch would be just like a peasant being very poor with a lack of hygiene and manners. This costume design consists of muted colors of brown, grey and black because during the Dark Ages, lavish and vivid colors were a sign of wealth and dark, drab colors were seen as the poor. For her costume I selected a stiff black fabric to signify how poor and dirty the witch would look during this time period. As a shawl I used a scraggly grey fabric that looks torn to shreds to symbolize the lack of civility a witch living on the edges of town would have.
To increase the dirty peasant look, I took black netting and used it as an underskirt to the mid-length sackdress. The witch would be dirty and filthy so I would rub these fabrics in the dirt to give it an authentic look. In my project, I tried to accommodate the theme of the Roman Dark Ages and the famous play Macbeth to create my own individual costume style. Given the situations and problems that time period endured, these specific costume designs would have very different looks than that of the original Macbeth story.
