… to study “Fashion” of the Colonists. We recall that a “Silhouette is the Recognizable Shape of Fashion as It changes”. This was (and is) based on what people know, can get, can do, afford, and want.
In the American Colonies, the fashionable Silhouette was first established by the Europeans. It was then adjusted by women in the “New World” to fit their specific needs. Because women in the mid 18th century Colonial America came from all over the world, a diverse and constantly changing culture brought new and different attitudes than that of Europe.
All of this – plus direct influence in commerce and culture from Europe, the Asias, India, and other countries would eventually merge into what would become uniquely “American” fashion after the Revolutionary War that established the United States of America.
(Portrait: Wealthy English heiress Dido Elizabeth Belle (left) with her cousin Elizabeth Murray (right) established a new cultural hierarchy in Europe in the late 1770’s that would affect fashion in the new United States)