At the demo on colonial men’s clothing: I’m in the orange coat, Joshua is in the green one, Brandon is in blue. You can see the class differences between us – monied professional, lowly apprentice, even more lowly indentured servant. Bella’s outfit, as a constable, is between mine and Joshua’s – she has a frock coat like mine, but not as fancy. Colonial costume is still all about class – Brandon’s is a slightly poorer copy of Joshua’s, which is a slightly poorer copy of Bella’s, which is a slightly poorer copy of mine, which would be a poorer copy of that of someone like John Hancock or the Royal Governor, which would be a poorer copy of the English court, which would be a poorer copy of the French court, which set the opulence standard.

You can see how the boys’ hats aren’t cocked, and they have kerchiefs instead of a cravat, and no lace or ruffles. They are wearing “jackcoats”, the short coat of “every man jack”, which was later shortened to “jacoat” and, in the post-rev-war era, “jacket”. I’m wearing a frock coat, with fancy pockets and “lacing”, or narrow braided trim. To get trim of the right color and look, I hand-braided DMC embroidery floss, six strands of it. It’s narrow and probably won’t be noticed much, but I felt it definitely gave a “finished” look.

Some reenactment groups have a “ten-foot-rule”, meaning if it passes reasonably well at ten feet, that works OK. Some are much stricter and don’t allow beards (which would kill all of us except Bella), visible machine stitching, or any non-period fabrics. Luckily ours is a ten-foot-rule group, because even with all the hard work I did on these period outfits, they aren’t good enough for the Concord/Lexington people. That’s OK – we have fun anyway.