Title: Colonial Clothing - Revolution and the New Republic 1775-1800
Headings: 
AmericanRevolution.org
Content: It was impossible for the new Republic to disavow, much less to hide, its ancestry. The upheavals of the late eighteenth century finally reached the field of dress. The weight, expanse, and
cumbersomeness of the costume had attained such dimensions that nothing short of a reaction could suffice. High head-dresses, hoops, voluminous skirts, powder and patches, high-heeled shoes, and large broad-brimmed hats were discarded. In their place, through the closing years of the century, came the grace and simplicity of the Empire style - lower coiffures, the straight, clinging lines of the gowns, the low-heeled shoes and sandals, the turban head-dresses, and the use of thin, semi-transparent materials. For the women, the new fashion was just another swing of the pendulum. Presently they would go back to hoops, full skirts, and tight bodices. The men committed themselves, however, to a type of dress that leads down to modern times in a straight line. Their trousers were reaching to the middle of the calf, and on their way to the shoe-top. Wigs had vanished and color was going.