Here is a portion of a letter written by Governor Belcher to a London tailor in 1733:
"I have desired my brother, Mr. Partridge to get me some cloaths made, and that you should make them, and have sent him the yellow grogram suit you made me at London; but those you make now must be two or three inches longer and as much bigger. Let 'em be workt strong, as well as neat and curious. I believe Mr. Harris in Spittlefields (of whom I had the last) will let you have the grogram as good and cheap as anybody. The other suit to be of a very good silk, such as may be the Queens birthday fashion, but I don't like padisway. It must be a substantial silk, because you'll see I have ordered it to be trimm'd rich, and I think a very good white shagrine will be the best lining. I say let it be a handsome compleat suit, and two pair of breeches to each suit."
Picture to yourself the garb in which the patriot John Hancock appeared one noonday in 1782:
"He wore a red velvet cap within which was one of fine linen, the last turned up two or three inches over the lower edge of the velvet. He also wore a blue damask gown lined with velvet, a white stock, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, black satin small-clothes, white silk stockings and red morocco slippers."
What gay peacock was this strutting all point-device in scarlet slippers and satin and damask, spreading his gaudy feathers at high noon in sober Boston streets!--was this our boasted Republican simplicity? And what "fop-tackle" did the dignified Judge of the Supreme Court wear in Boston at that date? He walked home from the bench in the winter time clad in a magnificent white corduroy surtout lined with fur, with his judicial hands thrust in a great fur muff.
Fancy a Boston publisher going about his business tricked up in this dandified dress--a true New England jessamy.
He wore a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small-clothes, white silk stockings and pumps fastened with silver buckles which covered at least half the foot from instep to toe. His small-clothes were tied at the knees with riband of the same color in double bows the ends reaching down to the ancles. His hair in front was well loaded with pomatum, frizzled or creped, and powdered; the ear locks had undergone the same process. Behind his natural hair was augmented by the addition of a large queue, called vulgarly the false tail, which, enrolled in some yards of black riband, hung halfway down his back.