MANUFACTURING HAD NOT YET REACHED THE colonies—that would come after the Revolution, and thanks in no small part to Alexander’s efforts. So in the years prior, much of the fabric used to make clothes was imported, which meant colonial-era clothing reflected a person’s status. A wealthy planter in Virginia might wear garments made from Chinese silk or Dutch linen, and English-made shoes. Enslaved people would be dressed in inexpensive imports made specifically for them in English factories. Homespun fabrics were available on the frontier.
Gowns for women had full skirts, fitted bodices, and sleeves that ended below the elbow. Women often accessorized with kerchiefs, aprons, and ruffles. Shoes were pointed, with a bit of a heel. Men of fashion and style wore tricorn hats, buckled shoes, jackets, ruffled shirts, and pants—often bejeweled for special occasions.
And then there were wigs. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fashionable people in America wore wigs and hair powder, and sometimes both. They were a status symbol that said, “I have enough money to buy hair.” Louis XIII of France started this trend to conceal his premature balding.
Head lice were a common scourge, and many people kept their hair shorn as a result. Wigs could be infested, but they were easier to pick through. Even more hair-raising, a sexually transmitted disease called syphilis could cause embarrassing, patchy hair loss. Wigs—made of human or animal hair—helped hide the problem.
Wigs and hair powder went out of style at the end of the eighteenth century, though older conservatives continued to wear them into the nineteenth century.