Gwen's wardrobe in season five makes me sad. (I'm not the best at analysing but please bear with me)
Partly it is the fact that it just doesn't look like something she would wear. Like I get that she looks good. She doesn't look out of place in any way, but her clothes just don't suit her.
obviously she looks regal and beautifully. she looks like a queen, but she doesn't look like gwen.
I understand that what she wore before wasn't exactly what a queen should be wearing, but it feels like in costume design they went a bit too far in the opposite direction. all the colours are too dark, the details don't really fit with her personality. her costumes throughout the show are all relatively similar but once she becomes queen it feels like she changes completely. this probably reflects how her personality changes, which I also don't like. you would think that since she wasn't raised in nobility she would be fair and kind, not willing to kill a servant girl just because she overheard a conversation. it feels like they set it up from the beginning of the season for us to dislike her.
when I think of guinevere I think of costumes like these
these flower corsets are some of my favourite things she wears, and she could have worn something similar when she was queen.
I started thinking, in terms of the show, about why she might have changed her costume design so much and then I thought it might have something to do with respect. swen was a servant turned queen, and probably a lot of the people of camelot wouldn't have liked this much. you know, tradition and shit. so she probably drew inspiration from the other nobility she knew and decided to dress like that. for example, a lot of what she wears is similar to what Morgana wore.
like, obviously thay aren't exactly the same but it feels like there is definitely inspiration here.
this is probably because Morgana was respected (obviously before she because evil).
a lot of the female nobility/royalty clothing we see from camelot and the other kingdoms is Morgana, although we also see this from other visiting people, such as vivian, mithian and elena.
(best picture I could find of her full dress)
obviously elena is wearing a wedding dress here but she is literally marrying Arthur (who gwen married which is why she started wearing these clothes in the first place), and we can see that this colour and style is available to her class.
mithian and vivian are both wearing lighter, more delicate styles, and I get that these aren't anything I could see gwen wearing either but it's definitely closer than what she's actually wears. need I remind you that mithian was supposed to marry Arthur as well?
one thing I could find that is similar is literally gwen's coronation dress. while not exactly the same, it does seem very similar to somathing Morgana wore when she became queen
I feel like the purple and the gold colour scheme seem quite similar, as well as the sleeves and the general embroidered decorations.
I do also feel like this might be the most similar to gwen's original style that she goes in terms of her costumes as queen. it's a lighter colour and the gold decorations feels less heavy than when it is mixed with a darker fabric. this dress is more silky and delicate, rather than one of the first things she wears in season 5
the gold appears to be maybe a darker shade of gold especially when mixed with the maroon colour of the dress. this dress is clearly perfect for a queen, but it just doesn't feel like gwen. (not necessarily connected to Morgana jsut another point)
i guess what she was trying to do was remind the people of camelot that she was to be respected, and she knew how much people had loved Morgana. vivian and elena, on the other hand, were not. they were only in camelot for a short time but in that time they didn't really get people to like them. vivian was rude and elena was a bit 'weird' to them (not sure how else to describe their reactions to her). gwen didn't even meet mithian because she was in exile (another reason she needed people to respect her), so Morgana was the best person to take inspiration from.
the connection to morgana's outfits could also represent the connection between them later in the season and when gwen is under her control
overall, I think they did gwen dirty in the final season and she definitely deserved better.
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