What was clothing like in the 1700s

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On now and coming soon Exhibitions Displays Courses. Breeches, a shirt, a waistcoat, and a coat. Top with a cravat and a tricorne hat, add stockings and shoes and voila! Now the quality of the materials is what counted and where you would see wealth. The shirt was ridiculously long and acted as a shift see colonial underwear. It should be mentioned here that the term waistcoats can be very confusing to us modern folks.

A long fitted, stylish vest. This waistcoast could be wool, silk, decorated, or plain. Want examples? Thomas Jefferson wore fancy ones.

Worker bees like the tradesmen did not. Discover The Art of the Colonial Blacksmith. Sometimes I think we have this notion that everyone wore these white powdered wigs all the time. Well, there were wigs but not everyone wore them, and not all the time.

Wigs were generally a wealthy guy thing and they were based on the job. Think of it this way, the more important the job, the bigger the wig. Where are the big wigs? You just learned something. This Family Blog Amazon Store with costumes and wigs. The short answer? For women, colonial clothing was all about layers! As with modern life, the exact outfit would be based on the activities of the day or evening and the social status.

That is to say Martha Washington preparing to host a dinner would not wear the same thing as a farming wife headed out to do chores. The styles however, were pretty standard. The variance came in what fabric was used. Wool, cotton, linen, silk…these were the basics.

The colors and the pattern were varied. Scroll down to watch Sage get dressed and see all the layers. You were a kid, then you learned how to adult, and then you were an adult. But there were a couple differences in colonial clothing for kiddos. Young girls did tend to wear jumps instead of stays.

Men in this time period did not wear long pants. Their pants, called "breeches", came to just below the knee. They had a button fly and pockets and often buttoned at the knee as well. This man wears a waistcoat. This one is sleeveless, similar to what is called a vest today, but a waistcoat might also have sleeves. There are many more buttons down the front than are needed because they were considered stylish for men.

Women's clothing usually had no buttons! Shoes were hand sewn by "cordwainers", or shoemakers. They had no rights or lefts. This man does not have on his everyday shoes. These are blue and made fancier with heels that are painted red.

These red heels would be considered quite stylish for men. This man wears or "kerchief", or "neck cloth". Coat skirts gradually became less full and the front was cut in a curved line towards the back. Waistcoats became shorter.

The upper leg began to show more and more and by the end of the century breeches fitted better because they were often made of knitted silk.

Shoes became low-heeled with pointed toes and were fastened with a detachable buckle and straps or ribbon on the vamp the upper front part of a boot or shoe. Mantua or court dress, silk embroidered with coloured silk and silver thread, England, , Museum no. To give the figure the required shape a corset was worn under the bodice. It was made of linen and stiffened with whale bones inserted between parallel lines of stitching.

They fastened with lacing down the back which could be laced tightly to give an upright posture to the torso and to emphasise the waist. A 'busk' or strip of bone, wood or metal was sometimes incorporated into the front of the stays. Hair was worn close to the head with a small linen cap which sometimes had lace lappets, streamers that hung either side of a woman's cap. The cap was covered by a hood or hat for outer wear.