Title: Dress - Colonial America | Britannica
Headings: Colonial America
Colonial America
The Ottoman Empire
Europe and America: 19th and 20th centuries
The 19th century

Content: For example, men wore breeches full at the waist, a doublet and jerkin, and a hip-length, loose overgarment that had been fashionable in Europe in the later 16th century. This was the mandilion, derived from the medieval tabard. It was now a loose jacket with free-hanging sleeves. It had been adopted by the Puritans, whose version was generally lined with cotton and fastened with hooks and eyes. By mid-century the buff coat had also become a staple garment among colonists in New England. Originally a military coat made of hide, it was durable and warm; it was cut simply in four sections, with or without sleeves. The everyday dress of women was a short gown of durable material, with a full skirt over a homespun petticoat, covered by a long apron of white linen. The more stylish dress was longer and made of finer material. It often had the virago sleeve—full at elbow and shoulder and drawn in at intervals by strings of narrow ribbon—that appears in most 17th-century portraits of American women and children.