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wr1t3w1tm3 · 4 months

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I wanted to add another little bit about clothing and characters of PotC.

I don't think it's a coincidence that of all the characters, only Jack Sparrows costume has remained relatively unchanged. Of all the characters, he's changed the least.

But looking at Elizabeth in the picture above, on the right, we see that her outfit has changed quiet a lot from her first (adult) appearance in CotBP (below).

In CotBP, she is obviously wearing a dress with a corset, but we see she is wearing a white dress with yellow accents. Her final outfit from At World's End (outside of the end credit scene, which doesn't count) is black with gold/yellow accents. Earlier in AWE, we see her in all black, and even briefly in the scene where Soa Feng puts her in the more ornamental robes, those are dark colors. My point here is that as Elizabeth's story progresses, she dresses in darker colors. It happens in every movie.

In CotBP she goes from the white with gold to a sort of mauve-y red (IDK I don't know my colors that well) to that bright red coat on Isla De Muerta. And at the end, during the execution sequence, she's in that other yellow dress (see below). And even when she's in her underthings, they're white. Which we only see her in when she's surrounded by Norrington and his soldiers. When she's back where society would deem her "place". When she's aboard a pirate vessel, where she can be truer to herself, she's in darker colors. Around society, she has an image to upkeep, so she wears the lighter colors, using them as a shield.

And I can't forget pants. Elizabeth wearing pants near the end of the movie really drives home just how much she's changed in these movies. Here she's wearing arguably the least amount of clothes she's worn during the entire movie (even her underclothes are several layers of full-length dress like stuff). Even Anamaria, the only other significant female character in CotBP wears pants. They show the freedom these women have as pirates. This same point can be made when she eventually ends up in soley pants through the mid part of DMC to the end of AWE, except for the brief moment she's in a dress while imprisoned by Soa Feng, which I feel only strengthens my point.

Now, let's look at Will in the above (left) picture. He's in what I like to call his "Muskateer Get Up" - he's wearing the more billowy, formal shirt, a brown vest with double crossed belts, a red cape, brown pants and that garish hat. Will's outfits in CotBP are much less about color and more about appearance. In the picture above from Will's first adult appearance, he is pictured wearing a full, formal suit with tie, coat, and everything. As the movie progresses and he gets closer and closer to Elizabeth, he loses more pieces of that suit.

By the end of CotBP, Will is left with just his vest, trousers, and undershirt from the original ensemble.

Him putting on the more colorful ensemble at the end to free Jack is symbolic of him accepting his true identity (son of a pirate) and allow his experiences to change him.

I wanna talk about hair here for a second. Elizabeth and Will both get hair used as a symbol as well. For Will, his is kept up until approx. his capture in CotBP by Barbossa. Once he's finally in the thick of it, and once again when he's accepted the results of his actions, it's down (in the opening shot with Governor Swann we can see his hair is kept back in a ponytail). The same can be said for Elizabeth: during the scenes where she is wearing her lighter clothes, where society is expecting something of her, her hair is kept up. When she goes out to Barbossa's ship, and basically up until she's back in her stuffy societal position, her hair is down. Now, it's not practical, but it is symbolic (I still don't give it a pass. That is a crime honey. I have to put my hair back to walk to class when it's windy, put your damn hair up on the high seas dammit!).

Back to clothes: we really get to see this change in Elizabeth and Will's characters and their clothing best in DMC and AWE.

We can see here that Elizabeth is once again in yellow, and her hair is done in a half up, half down style. Her yellow is once again a symbol of her being in a societally "acceptable" position (the same can be said for Will, more on that in a moment), however her hair can be seen as a sort of "sticking it to the man", since, as we've established, Elizabeth's hair is down when she is getting a taste of freedom. Marrying Will is an act of freedom for her, since she's not been forced to marry Norrington. With Will, we get a special blend of symbolism. He too is wearing yellow, which can be seen as symbolic of him doing a "societally deemed chill" thing: getting married. However, his is surrounded by the much darker blue, which as I will establish momentarily, is a symbol of him straying further towards piracy and away from society. This is also the fanciest get up we see him in: he looks like a soldier and has the same tricorn hat we know Jack wears. As far as his hair, it's up in a ponytail. So, we know that Will is in a societally acceptable position, but just like Elizabeth, his scuffle with pirates previously has changed him. However, unlike Elizabeth, he's not really acknowledging that in public, hence the ponytail.

Just like with CotBP, DMC gives us similar outfit evolutions with Will and Elizabeth, but with some minor changes. Will still ends up stripping down to the most basic components of his suit by the end (though this time he doesn't get a final outfit change, though it appears he gets it at the beginning as he doesn't seem to be in the full wedding suit when he leaves Port Royal) and Elizabeth ends up in pants and a red shirt once more. Both have their hair down as they return to piracy, again a symbol of their freedom or even just comfort level away from society. Elizabeth is back in pants again, relatively free (despite the whole Davy Jones situation). The only major hair change to note is that when she's on Tortuga, Elizabeth keeps her hair up and very short looking. Even if this is a temporary change, it's the first time we really see her acting like a pirate. Even stowing over to Tortuga she'd kept to the shadows and been witty about her interactions with the crew. This shorter hair can be taken to symbolize a new start (even if, again, it's only temporary).

What I want to note here is the colors used. Both end up wearing significantly darker colors by the end of the film. Even their yellow and blue at the beginning of the film are the darkest we've seen outside of the blue navy coats, but I'd personally argue that Will's coat is darker than the EICo's blue. Elizabeth's dress is a darker yellow, and as the movie progresses, they end up in darker and darker colors. Both end in grungy, dirty clothes too, in contrast with the previous film. Will is in greyer tinted, dingy stuff, and Elizabeth is wearing maroon and a brown darker than Will's from CotBP.

Also, I'm putting a quick pin in Elizabeth's maroon from DMC for Will's fit in AWE. We already saw Will wearing yellow for the first time in DMC when Elizabeth so prominently wore the color in CotBP, so him wearing maroon in AWE after Elizabeth wore it prominently in DMC cannot be a coincidence. I think it's probably a very literal symbol, in that she is really starting to rub off on Will.

Now let's jump to AWE. Elizabeth is featured initially in all black (minus the hat and poncho which are quickly discarded). Will's outfit also appears this way due to the water he's been soaked in, although we soon learn that it's black with the maroon shirt. Everyone's in mostly dark clothes, as this is a dark hour for pirates. Also here, Will's hair is undone, and Elizabeth's is in a tight braid. Again, Elizabeth is in a more "acceptable" position, but this doesn't last long. It's down again once they hit Davy Jones locker. Will's hair, however, stays back almost the entire movie, beginning with their search for the locker (See below).

As I mentioned before, the dark clothes are a pretty standard symbol for dark times. Just about everyone in this movie is wearing dark clothes. The maroon on Will still shows how Elizabeth has rubbed off on him, but his hair back shows us he isn't as free as he could be, how he's trying to hide the effect of his experiences on the Flying Dutchman from everyone. He's weighed down between his options: Elizabeth and his father. We learn pretty quickly into the movie that he's gonna have to choose, and he doesn't want too.

Once again, as mentioned above, Elizabeth is the one who gets an outfit change for this movie. First, she ends up in the red and blue ensemble from Soa Feng. Red is a color we've seen her in before, one we know she's comfortable in. Blue is one we haven't seen her in, so we can see how she sort of feels during this scene through these colors. At first, she's ill at ease, but once Soa Feng reveals his cards, she gets him hook, line, and sinker. She's in control. She's cool, she knows what she's doing.

When Elizabeth rolls up to the pirate council in the black and gold threads from Soa Feng, she also has her hair up (not many pictures of that, unfortunately). And while, yes, that does mean she's in an "acceptable position", I think here its more that she's in a position she's prepared for. She's the governor's daughter, so a position of power is something she theoretically should have in the bag. And we see she does because she becomes Pirate King pretty quick. Again, it's a dark hour, but that gold really ties her character back to when she was firmly the governor's daughter: when she only wore yellow. Something I didn't mention above is that Elizabeth really only wears yellow in the presence of her father, the governor. And again, really only while he's the real power. By the time he loses that to Cutler Beckett, she's in maroon and brown. The colors symbolize that while this is the pirate's darkest hour, Elizabeth is prepared for this. She can lead them. And her hair, once again down, represents that she is free here, even in the face of impending doom (same with her pants). She is a real pirate, and she's ready to fight for their freedom (even if I would HIGHLY recommend tying your damn hair back, girl!).

Let's look at Will now. In AWE, he's got some pretty static character stuff, but that's okay, because he got a lot of that in DMC. His most major outfit is the switch from a black vest during the locker sequences to a black coat when Jack throws him overboard and lets him get captured. He's still got a crossed belt, which has become a staple, and we get a little pop of color from his sash/gun belt thing. Which, funnily enough, looks to be predominantly brown, red, and gold.

So as far as colors, we again get the darkest hour bit, although for Will his is more of a darkest hour because he's going to soon be forced to choose between his dad and his (I'm assuming) fiancé. The maroon shows that Will and Elizabeth are still connected, she's still rubbing off on him despite their coolness during this movie. The steaks of color in his belt help us really see where he came from too, red from AWE, the gold again from Elizabeth, and the brown calling all the way back to CotBP.

Will's final costume change comes once he's sort of forced into the captainship of the Flying Dutchman. He's still wearing the black coat and maroon shirt, with the black crossed belt, but there's two major changes: the bandanna and his hair. The hair I'll harp on real quick because it's down. And as far as we've discussed, that mean he's more himself, that he's allowing the world to see just how much he's been changed by the circumstances around him. Like Calypso says, Will has a "touch 'a destiny", and as far as we can tell, this is quite literally where he is meant to be (for the 2007 crowd this was assumed to be in perpetuity as well). This is like, literally the 2nd or 2 times his hair is down in this movie. Do I like that all the symbols are pointing to him being here on purpose? fuck no. But it gives me that kind-of-icky-kind-of-not pit on my stomach that tells me this is a narratively satisfying conclusion.

Turning to the bandana, this is something we've never seen his character wear, ever, in the entire franchise. The only other prominent characters we see wear bandannas are those who do so under hats: Jack and Barbossa. And both of them are captains. So, the bandana not only signifies the magic-girl-transformation(TM)that Will undergoes after getting his heart carved out by (assumedly) his own father; but it also symbolizes his new role in life: captain of the Flying Dutchman. Its color tells us something too, the same as his clothes. The maroon symbolizes how Elizabeth has worn off on him, and the black shows us that when he became captain, it was a dark time. But the bandanna, that baby is green. What can that symbolize? Well, do me a favor and scroll back up to Will and Elizabeth's wedding outfits from DMC. What colors are they wearing? Yellow and Blue? I sure hope so. What color does yellow + blue = ? Green. Will's bandana symbolizes not only his new station in life, but also the entwinement of his and Elizabeths' destinies, now for all eternity. That's why even though Norrington ended up in gold and blue, like Will, he never got any green, he says it himself: "Our destinies were entwined, but never joined" (I paraphrase).

So, in conclusion, the wardrobe department for this trilogy slaps, the writers were great, Gore Verbisnky is a legend, and I just spent over a literal hour over analyzing the clothing on two fictional pirates in a Disney movie franchise based on a ride.

I love how I said this was gonna be little. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk ya'll. Felt like pictures might do us some good this time and break up the giant walls of text. This has been fun to put together, and I may do an analysis of other characters later, but IDK. I'm trying to outline a new WIP so... we'll see how long that one lasts. I may do an analysis of the costumes from five as they pertain to the original trilogy, but I don't know yet (for reference, I personally don't consider 4 as a main line story. It's like Rogue One is to the Original Star Wars trilogy, it explains a couple plot points for the next movie, but it's not a necessary watch).

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