Pride and Prejudice: A masterpiece in symbolism

With its cinematography, rousing musical score and emotive dialogue, the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice is widely known to be a cinematic masterpiece.

However, there’s another aspect to this movie that is so frequently overlooked: the wardrobe.

Clothing in films plays a much more central role than many of us realize. Directors use it to flesh out characters, personality traits, or development across a film. When done right, clothing choices help us as the audience understand more about a character than dialogue or imagery.

A perfect example of this would be in the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice, with the character Mr. Darcy. The way his clothing changes throughout the movie also impacts us, as the audience, when discerning his character.

The first time we see him is at Meryton Townhall, where he wears a pressed jacket and a neck scarf. This type of clothing is supposed to be rigid and structured, which reflects the way he acts during this scene. He is reserved, moody, and sticks to the wall of the room. Already in this part of the movie, we see a clear relation between clothing and character. Mr. Darcy, a strict and uncompromising person, wears stiff and restrictive clothing.

His clothing stays like this for the first hour or so of the movie, during which he and Lizzie repeatedly challenge each other, developing this tense and hostile relationship.

However, there is a crucial pivot point in this movie: the carriage scene. When Lizzie is leaving Netherfield Park with her sister, Darcy grabs her bare hand to help her into the carriage. Back then, this gesture was scandalous and, to the audience, signifies a sort of breakdown in Mr Darcy’s rigidity.

From this point onwards, we see a shift in both his attitude towards Lizzie and his wardrobe. For example, at the De Bourgh manor, his cravat is looser and his jacket is more relaxed, contrasting the stiffness we saw from him at the beginning of the movie. His demeanour relaxes as well, seeing as he starts to willingly seek Lizzie out and chat with her, unprovoked. He even admits that “[He does] not have the talent of conversing easily with people [he has] never met.”

By the time he proposes to her at the gazebo, his character has completely changed from how we knew him at the beginning, and so has his style. At this point, he has opened up to Lizzie and admitted to himself that, despite everything, he is in love with her.

Obviously, this first proposal fails (note: don’t insult someone’s family and then propose to them 10 seconds later), causing Darcy to evolve as a person even further. And, with his personality, his clothing evolves as well.

When we see him at Pemberly, his coat is lighter and unbuttoned, and he’s wearing a patterned vest — a far cry from the dark and closed coat we saw him in when he first met Lizzie. This scene also marks the first time Darcy and Lizzie genuinely smile at each other, representing to the audience another wall in Darcy’s character being broken down.

Finally, at the crucial second proposal of the movie, Darcy is completely and scandalously undressed by 18th century standards. Not only that, but he had walked all the way to the Bennet home, something completely unheard of for nobility at that time. This is by far his most vulnerable scene in the movie, which is why it’s fitting that he’s in nothing but his sleepwear.

Throughout the whole movie, we see his character change and evolve, and his clothing changes along with it. From restrictive fabric and coats in the beginning to literal sleepwear at the end, we see his clothing reflect his personality, showing yet another reason why this movie is a masterpiece of imagery.