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    • Home
    • Events
      • 2023 Calendar
      • 2022 Fur Trade Event
    • Photos
      • 2022 - Fur Trade Event
      • 2022 Spring Drill
      • 2022 Establishment Day
      • 2021 Encampment
      • 2021 400 Maritime Salute
      • 2021 June Drill
      • 2021 Establishment Day
      • 2020 October Drill
      • 2020 August Drill
      • 2020 Establishment Day
    • Resources
      • Men's Clothing Guidelines
      • Ready Made/Custom Clothes
      • Fabric Guidelines
      • Color Guidelines
      • Patterns, Construction
      • Fabric Suppliers
      • Weapons & Accessories
    • History
      • Recommended Reading List
      • 2020 - Pilgrim's Landing
      • Pirates Ashore
      • Navigation Lecture
    • Join Us
      • Mission & Bylaws
      • How to Join
      • Contact Us
      • Other Reenactment Groups

New Plimmoth Gard

New Plimmoth GardNew Plimmoth GardNew Plimmoth Gard
  • Home
  • Events
    • 2023 Calendar
    • 2022 Fur Trade Event
  • Photos
    • 2022 - Fur Trade Event
    • 2022 Spring Drill
    • 2022 Establishment Day
    • 2021 Encampment
    • 2021 400 Maritime Salute
    • 2021 June Drill
    • 2021 Establishment Day
    • 2020 October Drill
    • 2020 August Drill
    • 2020 Establishment Day
  • Resources
    • Men's Clothing Guidelines
    • Ready Made/Custom Clothes
    • Fabric Guidelines
    • Color Guidelines
    • Patterns, Construction
    • Fabric Suppliers
    • Weapons & Accessories
  • History
    • Recommended Reading List
    • 2020 - Pilgrim's Landing
    • Pirates Ashore
    • Navigation Lecture
  • Join Us
    • Mission & Bylaws
    • How to Join
    • Contact Us
    • Other Reenactment Groups

Men's Clothing Guidelines

Introduction

Our group portrays events involving the English settlers in Plimoth  Colony between the years 1620-1645. Clothing in the group is “best  effort” and our philosophy is inclusive.


New members may rely on borrowed clothing, when available, for their  first events. You can purchase some items from merchants who cater to  the reenactment market, commission clothing from others knowledgeable in  historic tailoring, or make your own. For our portrayals, we are  looking at average people here in the colonies, not at high status lords and ladies in England. These guidelines are intended to help you select  styles and fabrics that will help you with that. If you have any  questions, check with us before making a major investment.

Recommended Clothing

Basic

  • Shirt (shirt weight white linen)
  • Breeches or Hose (trousers) (wool cloth)
  • Doublet (jacket) (wool, linen, hemp cloth, thin leather)
  • Stockings or cut cloth hose (knitted wool or wool cloth)
  • Garters (knitted wool or wool cloth)
  • Shoes (leather)
  • Waist Girdle or Belt (leather)
  • Hat or knit cap (felted or knitted wool)
  • Coat or Cassock or Cloak (overgarment for cold) (wool, hemp or linen cloth)

Additional

  • Linen neck and/or wrist wear (shirt weight white linen)
  • Points (laces for fastening) (leather, braided cord)
  • Purse or pouch (leather or knitted wool)
  • Gloves or mitts (leather, knitted wool)


Linens

The basic garment for a man is a shirt. The shirt of this time is quite long, about knee length, and it served as all-purpose underwear and nighttime sleeping wear. For people in that period, a fresh shirt  was critical to feeling clean. It absorbed sweat and body dirt, and was  washed regularly, unlike woolen garments that are not normally washed,  being typically brushed, aired, and spot cleaned. Like the smock for  women, it would be made of the whitest and finest linen that a person could afford. It is a simple shape – there are no yokes, and it is all straight lines.


Cuffs and collars were primarily joined by ties made of cords which  were pushed through eyelets on either sides of the collars and cuffs.  The collars and cuffs often seen on the outside of doublets are mostly  separate pieces, often made of nicer linen, that are discussed in the  section on “Ruffs and Cuffs.”


Photo:  Boy Peeling Fruit, Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio. Longhi Collection,  Rome, 1592-1593. The youth in this portrait wears a moderately loose fitting linen shirt. Note the long front slit. The slit could be joined  by a cord passed through eyelets on both sides of the collar. 

Breeches or Hose

The term “hose” in this period does not only refer to stockings, but  to everything a man wore from the waist down, including his pants. There  were numerous words for various styles of hose – galligaskins, round  hose, venetians, etc. In the 1620s, the style was for full breeches.  They could end just above the knee or below it. Sensible working people like the Pilgrims would have worn middle of the road styles. The look that came into style in the 1630s was a longer, slimmer type of breeches, clearly coming below the knee, with very visible fly buttons.  Before that, the style was generally fuller, shorter, and fly buttons are not very noticeable.


Men’s breeches were usually lined with linen of a utilitarian type, and had outer fabric that could be various types of wool, linen, hemp, or thin leather. They might also be interlined, having a layer of  clothing between the outer fabric and the lining, for extra body.


All men’s breeches had pockets. The pockets were shaped like a square bag, attached to the waistband between the outer fabric and the lining, with a slit that was stitched to an opening in the outer layer of pants. Pocket bags were sometimes made of chamois leather.


Photo: A suit of wool serge, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1625-1635. This suit is an excellent example of middle class clothing from 1625-1630. Note the short-waisted, six tabbed doublet, and full breeches.

Doublets

The doublet was a fitted short jacket which buttoned down the front and at the cuff and was worn by men over their shirts. They came to the natural waist (about the level of the bottom of your rib cage) with  shoulder wings, and a peplum of small tabs around the bottom. They did not have yokes over the shoulders as are sometimes seen on modern interpretations. They could be made of wool, linen, hemp, or leather.  They were interlined with linen which had a layer of springy wool pad stitched to it over the shoulders for shaping. They were lined with linen. Their sleeves were generally permanently sewn into the armscye.  Doublets have a sturdy strip of linen worked with eyelets sewn to the waistline inside the garment behind the tabs. A critical aspect of  doublets and breeches throughout the first half of the 17th century is that they are attached together at the waist either by laces or hooks.  This attachment was very important to keep doublets from riding up and breeches from falling down. 


Photo:  A bricklayer’s leather doublet worn by jurist Hugo Grotius on his escape from prison in 1618. Rotterdam Museum, ca. 1610-1620. It is typical of the sturdy garments made of thin leather worn by laborers. 

Stockings or Hose

Hose are stockings. For men, they would be thigh-high, and might be  pointed (tied) or even temporarily sewn onto the breeches. Garters are  worn to keep them from sagging and bagging. Knitted stockings began to  be worn in the second half of the 16th century. Before that time, and for some time after, stockings made of wool cloth cut on the bias (diagonal) for stretch were common. Knitted stockings cost about twice the price as those of cloth, and often retained the characteristic back seam and triangular gores at the ankles common to cloth hose. Wool twills are ideal for cut cloth stockings because they have a lot of  natural stretch. Stockings are in solid colors, not in stripes as  sometime seen at re-enactor merchants. 


Photo:  Detail of a man’s knitted hose showing the triangular gusset. Although this painting is from earlier than our period, this style of hose persisted to at least the middle of the 17th century. Military Company,  Dutch, 1586. 

Shoes and Boots

Shoes are the same for men and women. They are made of leather,  typically brown or black. Common features of the era included a rounded, slightly almond-shaped toe (which gradually became more blunt as the 17th century wore on) and a very low heel or none at all. Right and left shoes are the norm for this time for people across social classes.  (Straight lasts came in with higher heels.) They had a pair of straps which met over the tongue at the instep and were joined with a lace or cord. They featured a small decorative hole set into the side seam.  These holes tended to be around the size of a quarter to half-dollar. In  the 1620s they became very large in fashionable circles. 


In England, boots were uncommon for daily wear amongst regular  people, except for certain occupations such as sea boots for fishermen, and low boots (like a work boot) for countrymen and farmers. Riding  boots are mostly the properly of gentlemen and military cavalry. Boots of any kind are hard to document for women. The situation in Plymouth Colony seems to have been a bit different.  William Mullins’ will from 2 April 1621 indicates there were definitely  boots in the colony from early on, “Alsoe I have xxj [21 pairs] of  shoes, and thirteene paire of bootes wch I give to the Companies hands for forty poundes at seaven years and if thy like them at that rate. If it be thought to deare as Overseers shall thinck good.” Many men’s  probate inventories list a pair of boots along with one or more pairs of  shoes.

Ruffs and Cuffs, Bands and Falls

Fine white linen at the neck and wrist was a point of pride for most  people in the period. Possibilities varied by social class, but people of the middling sort would have worn the best that they could afford.  Elite people could afford very fine linen with lace edgings. The average  person would have something plain and undecorated.


Ruffs were very common in the 1620s for both men and women, but  became rare in later decades, except among the Dutch. There were several styles. One style is a “casual” sort that was pleated tightly into a band and left to drape. This same ruff could be heavily starched and set with a hot iron to make it quite stiff. This treatment kept a band  clean and firm for a long time. When it was dirty, the starch would be  washed off and the ruff or band re-starched and set.


Both men and women might wear “cuffs”, a small version of a ruff worn  at the wrist. They could also wear “hand falls,” which look like wide shirt cuffs but are separate pieces. These might been pinned to the wrist of a doublet or jacket or temporarily stitched on. 


Photo:  Detail from Constantine Huygens and his secretary by Thomas de Keyser, National Gallery, London. 

Waist Girdles

Men wore narrow belts, or “waist girdles,” over their doublets, along  the seam where the body of the doublet and tabs are attached. Because they were worn on the outside of the doublet, waist girdles were not used to hold up the breeches. They could have specialized fittings meant for suspending a sword carrier. A small pouch might be carried on the  belt but for the most part men put small objects into their breeches  pockets.


Up to about the 1620s, swords were carried on a hanger that hung from the waist girdle. After that time, baldrics began to be used more commonly for carrying swords. Initially the baldrics were relatively narrow, not more than 2” wide, and usually divided into two straps which held the sword.


Photo:  Detail of a waist girdle in a portrait of a tailor by Giovanni Battista Moroni, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1565-1570.

Hats and Caps

Both men and women wore hats. They were blocked from wool or fur  felt, were high-crowned (six inches tall or more), and typically  featured a moderately wide brim. Colors could range from pale browns to dark natural shades almost to black. They would usually feature a hatband and might be lined. Hats were valuable and the lining helps the hat to last longer. There are surviving bills for hats sent out to be  perked up with brushing and new linings.


Flat caps, also known as “statute caps,” were worn by men. They were  knitted from wool yarn, and shrunk (fulled) to make them more  weatherproof. Under an English law of the period, passed to support the wool industry, by statute (hence the name statute cap), men were  supposed to wear this type of hat every Sunday.


Photo:  A knitted flat cap, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, English, 16th century. This cap is identical to those that would have been worn in the  17th century. 

There is a surviving cap in the Monmouth Museum in Wales, which may be  of a type referred to as a “Monmouth Cap,” that was issued to soldiers  and recommended for new colonists. It is similar in appearance to a modern beanie or toque. A type of knitted cap shaped more like a hat  with a wide brim are found in surviving examples from Denmark. 


Mariners from across Europe wore thrummed caps, which were produced by working short pieces of wool roving back through the weave of a knit cap, then fulling it to produce a waterproof and warm shell of strands. There are no known images of English women wearing knit caps in the period.


Photo:  Knit cap, Monmouth Museum, Wales, ca. 17th century. 

Over Garments

Jerkins are frequently found in records for men. They followed the  general form of a doublet with skirting, shoulder wings, and a collar  but might or not have hanging sleeves (sleeves which were partially  attached, sometimes with the ability to put your arms in them and  sometimes without). They often buttoned up the front and could be made from wool or leather. Leather jerkins are very common for working or military men.


Wool coats could be worn in the cold weather over the doublet and  jerkin. They were somewhat loose-fitting and ended between the thighs or hips. Voluminous knee-length cloaks might be worn in the cold weather  wrapped around the body. They had collars but not hoods. Short hip  length cloaks worn draped over one shoulder were an elite status item.


There was a kind of cloak/coat hybrid over garment known variously as a casaque, mandillion, riding cloak, or cassock. It had a trapezoidal body  with trapezoidal arms. It fastened with small buttons down the front and on both sides, front and back of the arms and could be buttoned  either as a cloak or as a coat with arms. 


Just to be confusing there was another garment, also known as a cassock, with a trapezoidal shaped torso and attached sleeves. It was a common mariner’s or working man’s over garment. It would usually be made to be pulled over the head and fastened at the neck slit with a button or eyelet. Based on sailor’s wills, they often were found in pairs.


Photo:  Riding cloak (casque) of Ernst Casimir of Nassau-Dietz, Dutch, in or before 1632.
 

Accessories

Men might wear mitts for cold weather or for agricultural tasks. Mitts  could be made of leather or knitted wool. Embroidered leather gloves  were worn by elites but serviceable leather gloves might be worn for  military pursuits such as handing the pike. Gloves could also be made of knitted wool. 


Photo:  A fulled knitted mitten and knitted gloves with thrumming on the cuffs, Danish Museum Collection, Copenhagen, 17th century.


Buttons

Follow these links for information on buttons:


Buy Pewter Buttons from The Tudor Tailor


Make Thread Covered Buttons


Make Fabric Covered Buttons

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