Thinking about how Glinda's skirts get progressively longer and more voluminous as the show progresses (not counting the bubble dress in NOMTW since that's out of order chronologically)
And the obvious reason for this is that it shows her maturing and gaining more status as the show goes on, but I wonder if there's also something to be said about her clothing becoming more cumbersome and restrictive. The bubble dress is heavy (I believe they tend to range about 12-15 lbs) and it's something that a lot of actresses complain about. Glinda in act 1 tends to have a lot of energy and very over-the-top body language. This is most apparent in popular, which varies between performances but usually involves a lot of jumping around, high kicks, even sometimes splits and attempted cartwheels. She loses this in act 2, both because she wants to project a more serious image as Glinda the Good and because she's just a lot less happy than she was in the first act. But there's also the additional fact that she couldn't do most of those things even if she wanted to, because of her clothing. The persona of Glinda the Good restricts her in a metaphorical sense and the clothing restricts her in a literal sense. She is physically unable to be as lively and expressive as she used to be. And I'm not sure this is intentional (there's also a broader point to be made here about women's clothing in general) but I think it's interesting nonetheless.
