Costuming. Elizabethan theater depended heavily on costuming to indicate the status or rank, occupation, and nationality of the characters being portrayed (Byrne, 1961 :264-66). In this, it merely reflected "real-life" practices. To a degree unknown to moderns, the resident of the preindustrial city literally "donned" his identity.

XREF: Connects to historical dress codes and sumptuary laws, plus theater studies on how costume functioned as a sign system before modern fashion. SEED: Could seed an essay on how clothing moved from announcing fixed identity to expressing personal taste — the shift from preindustrial 'dressing by rank' to modern self-construction.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 236