Colonial Times Clothing By: Nicholas Livshits 7A3

How men looked like. How women looked like. How children looked like at the age of six.

Introduction People think that Colonial people bought their clothes. This is very very wrong. They actually made their own clothes! So basically what they did was, that they picked this plant called flax. Now flax was used to make thread to sew the clothes together. For them to make the clothes itself the colonial people sheered these animals called sheep. They sheered sheep because they had wool, which they eventually used to make the clothes itself. Colonial people make only two sets of clothes for themselves, which makes it very awkward. So basically they only have two pairs of clothes and they wear one pair for the whole week, and that second pair they use only for Sunday. This made their clothes very stinky, not only are their clothes dirty they are also as well. They only take a few showers a year!

Flax picked for thread Wool sheered from sheep's

Family Use Everyone in the family would one time have to make clothes for themselves. No one in the family will make it for you, you have to make it all by yourself. To make the color of the clothes itself, children would have to go outside of their house and go and find themselves some berries and or roots to make some color dye. While the children where gone their grandmother would card some of the wool they have. When the Children come back with the dye the grandmother starts working on it and the children go and start to use the spinning wheel for the wool. Most of the times when they make clothes in a family, young girls mostly learned how to knit clothes, caps, stockings, and a lot more. On the other hand, boys learned how to weave clothes by hand. That sounds like such a hard thing to do in a man’s life.

Various Dyes used for clothing Spinning wheel used for wool.

Color of Clothing The color of clothing the colonial people wore was very weird. The color of their clothes was very fruity. The main colors that they mostly wore was yellow, red, purple and blue. This was this way because it was their favorite colors at the time. Also these colors were their favorite because it was actually their ONLY colors they can make with their found resources. The weirdest thing yet is that the women wore these capes, modern day people call them cloaks. To make the color red, what they did was take these berries called poke berries, and they would crush them and some red liquid would come out, they use that liquid to make the dye itself! Pretty cool huh? So basically after they would make the dye, they would use this dye to color capes for the women and children to wear. At that time capes (cloaks) were in fashion. The color of clothing the colonial people wore was very weird. The color of their clothes was very fruity. The main colors that they mostly wore was yellow, red, purple and blue. This was this way because it was their favorite colors at the time. Also these colors were their favorite because it was actually their ONLY colors they can make with their found resources. The weirdest thing yet is that the women wore these capes, modern day people call them cloaks. To make the color red, what they did was take these berries called poke berries, and they would crush them and some red liquid would come out, they use that liquid to make the dye itself! Pretty cool huh? So basically after they would make the dye, they would use this dye to color capes for the women and children to wear. At that time capes (cloaks) were in fashion.

Pick berries used for dyes. They have a light red color to it. The types of capes women and little girls wore.

Little children at the time didn’t really have the shortest hair. Most of the children had long voluminous hair, they really didn’t have the time to get a haircut. To say the least, the men didn’t look so good in their older years, so they wore these very weird wigs. The wigs were made of odd types of materials. The materials they had on the wigs were human hair, horse hair, and even goat hair! You could actually tell when a man was wealthy or when he was poor. To tell if a man was poor, their wig would be made of cheap thread. To tell if they were wealthy it would be made of real horse, human, or goat hair. There's also another way you can tell if they are wealthy, by the way they wear it. The wealthy people wear it upsidown on their heads. They would call this type of wig style big wigs.

This is one of the wigs that the colonial men wore. This is how Big wigs looked like.

At this time, shoe makers weren’t the best, they actually weren’t good at all. What they did was that they did not make shoes that fit on the left and right shoes. The shoes would be ether both left or both right. This probably made walking very difficult for them. The men would wear these type of pants, they were not really shorts but the pants went up to the knees. They weren’t called pants at the time they were called breeches. What we call now vests they called them waist-coats back then. They were basically vests just with a different name. The young boys wore their own types of clothes till to the age of five, when they turn into real men and dress as their fathers!

A pair of good old breeches. Type of shoes wore.

Like the boy and father, girls and mothers also were the same. At the same age of six, little females dress just like their mother. The rich/wealthy women wore these types of breeches but for women. Though these women breeches go down to the legs. These breeches are very tight. They squeeze the women's body, but it looks good though. These breeches were only good for the wealthy women the women that were poor couldn’t afford these so it ends up them wearing really horrible breeches. These women breeches are actually called under garments. When women had babies, they would have this thing called pudding, which is a pillow wrapped around a baby’s neck to protect them from when they fall.

The babies would have something like this on. The undergarments would be located under the dress.

Colonial clothing was very unique at the time. It was special for each type of clothing someone wore. This is way different than what we wear in modern day! Urls: Source: