Colonial America Research Paper

Fashion is an essential part of life and this is especially true for Colonial America. The reason fashion played an important role in colonial life is because it depicts status, connects the colonists to Europe, and helps them express themselves. Clothing also helps explain a great deal about the colonists in America. Colonial America’s fashion was influenced by Europe, but ultimately became American through creating clothing styles specifically for colonists’ daily needs (Loren, 4). Trade played an important role in Colonial America because it was responsible for importing the clothing styles and fabrics from Europe to the colonists who depended on the fashion of the English Courts to display their wealth and cultured selves. The colonies
had several trading partners, where they acquired several of the in demand fabrics for their clothing. The extensive network of trade the colonies had included, “wool from England and Scotland; linens from England, Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, the Baltic countries, and Russia; cotton from India and later England; silk from England, Europe, the Middle East, India, and China (Staples and Shaw 133).”
This extensive trade network helped the colonist acquire fabric from around the world and enabled them to recreate court fashions from Europe. An example of this is a “planter's daughter in tidewater Virginia in the 1770s could have worn at the same time a gown of silk from China, underclothing of linen from Holland, and footwear made in England.” This is because all the trade items are sent from their home country to a shop in London, where a merchant selects items and ships the items to the colonies (Baumgarten). Part of the reason trade was important in the colonies was because laws prohibited the manufacture of cloth in the colonies (Haulman). This caused cloth to be a significant import during colonial times because it was the single most valuable class of imports shipped into the American colonies. (Staples and Shaw, 134). Cloth was important because it was a major fabric used in a lot of the clothing. Another important thing about trade is that “Clothing and accessories worn in eighteenth-century America were selected from sources all over the world” (Baumgarten). Fashion is forever changing and this is true of 18th-century women’s fashion in the colonies.
There were three basic garments depending on wealth and status, one option was the closed robe or gown made of an attached bodice and skirt. Another option was the complete opposite and was the open robe, which was a gown with a skirt that was open at the front and worn with a petticoat. The final alternative for garment choices was the bodice and skirt (Staples and Shaw, 257). Although these were the three basic choices of clothing, how one wore them depended on their status. John Fanning Watson on the subject of colonial women stated, “Ladies never wore the same dress at work and on visits; they sat at home, or went out in the morning, in chints; brocades, satins and mantuas were reserved for evening or dinner parties. Robes…were always worn in full dress…Worsted was then thought dress enough for common days” (qtd. in Staples and Shaw
257).
The reason wealth or status affected colonial wardrobe is due to the fact that while many clothing articles were imported ready-made and from materials suitable for the majority of purses, middle-class women contained some handmade articles of clothing, while the wealthiest colonists could order garments from London tailors and skilled colonial mantua makers (257). In the 1700’s, mantua makers were tailors responsible for constructing gowns, petticoats, and other female garments (191). Even though not every colonial woman could order gowns directly from England, they still aspired to dress after the Newest Fashion, except for Quaker women, who worried about the importance and love of clothing other colonial women held (258). During 1751 to 1785, colonial women did not need to import their clothing from Britain because the articles could be obtained in the colonies. Colonists could buy the current fashion of the courts from colonial shops because the clothing industry is growing and there is a choice of either imported or domestically produced clothing during this time (269). Just like with colonial women, the men in Colonial America were also influenced by the fashion abroad. Men’s clothing consisted of a suit or coat, vest, and breeches. Since men also followed the fashion of the English courts the Virginia Gazette reported the trends to southern elites (Staples and Shaw, 327-328). In colonial Williamsburg, men wore clothing similar to the fashion in England and France, this included frock coats, knee breeches, and powdered wigs and tricorn hats (Loren, 3). The men that followed European fashion were typically upper-class men who could order custom-made suits with their measurements in London. Children’s clothing resembles adult clothing during the 18th-century and therefore was also influenced by England. Besides the differences in cut or construction, there was nothing that differentiates children’s clothing from adult clothing. Children essentially had two basic garment choices, knee breeches or ankle-length petticoats (Staples and Shaw, 371). The reason children wore clothes similar to adults is, in the 18th -century children were expected to grow up sooner and were relied on to help provide the family with labor (372). The colonists with European heritage would sometimes start children of six years old in an apprenticeship. In fact, the “concepts of refinement, gentility, and dressing according to one’s station in life, which were so important among the well-to-do, were taught to ‘youths’ and ‘maids’ – those between the ages of about 12 and their mid-teens in fashionable schools” (374). However, even though children were dressed to resemble miniature adults, clothing styles were being developed especially for children during the 1770s. This new fashions choice was not common until the 1780s (377). Even though colonial citizens replicated fashion worn in Europe, it was not always as highly decorated or the clothing in the colonies was part of an older trend. This is because “well-to-do folks did not always keep up-to-date with European high fashion” The reason colonist did not always follow the high fashion is because instead of ordering or making new apparel, they reconstructed older garments to conform to the latest fashion (Staples and Shaw, 35). In fact, European fashion and clothing was more decorated and embroidered than its American counterpart because colonist could not always afford to have highly decorated clothing. Colonist clothing served a more practical purpose than European court fashion. An example of this is women in England during 1600-1625 wore decorated waistcoats made of fine linen or silk and there is no document of colonial women wearing these decorated waistcoats (Staples and Shaw, 225). Even though European fashion, especially England’s, was highly influential in Colonial America, how the colonist wore the fashions varied. Each colonist and colony came from a different ethnic background. “During these centuries, English, Spanish, Dutch, French, and Russian colonies in North America were populated by Europeans, Africans, Native Americans and individuals of multiethnic ancestry.
Each of these groups had different dressing traditions” (Loren, 2). However, just because the colonists had different ethnic heritage/backgrounds does not mean they lost the European view of status through clothing. Where one’s clothes depict a person’s station in life and how wealthy they are. This belief of status through clothing was important in the colonies and sumptuary laws were created that restricted some people from wearing new fashions in the ways they wished (Loren, 2-3). In
fact, “because of the complex make up of peoples inhabiting North America and the interest of colonial officials in controlling this population, ideas, rules, and restrictions about the ways that certain people were to dress were abundant (Loren, 2).

Throughout the colonies, the fashion and European influences alter. This is because what is popular in one colony is not in another; an additional factor besides popularity is status or money. Some colonies were wealthier or had wealthier citizens that could afford to keep up with the ever-changing European fashions of the courts. “While no one fashion typified colonial life, what was integral to the American colonial experience was that people created specific fashions of clothing and adornment appropriate to their context and their daily experiences” (Loren, 4).