The current "The Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel" exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum provides both a dramatic contrast to the outfits and fashion associated with the very early settlers of our fair region and a glimpse at where the early rebellion against its inherent plainness would eventually lead us.
Like every other aspect of 17th-century Puritan life, what one wore was dictated by religious tenets and controlled by the government. And the prevailing thinking of those running the colony was "less is better."
In contrast to what many believe about the Puritans who settled Massachusetts in great numbers in the 1630s, the prevailing color of their garments was not black. According to historian David Hackett Fischer, writing in "Albion's Seed," black was eschewed by all but the most important people in the colony "not because it was too plain for their tastes, but because it was not plain enough." The wearing of black was the domain of the rich and powerful, although they, like the rest of the population, generally gravitated toward "sad colors." These included, but were not limited to, tawny, russet, purple, French green, "deer color" and "dead leaf."
While the upper classes often wore clothes that implied they did not work at manual labor, even they were subject to legal limitations when it came to dress and appearance. A series of early laws passed by the Massachusetts General Court regulated the wearing of jewelry, fancy lace and clothing designed to attract attention. Even the manufacturing of apparel deemed excessively fashionable — or that showed too much flesh or colorful undergarments — was prohibited.
But by the mid-17th century, Fischer says, the upper classes, those with estates valued in excess of 200 pounds, were accorded greater leeway in the matter of dress and fashion. It was not uncommon to see members of the Puritan hierarchy in Massachusetts wearing the latest London fashions, including garments adorned with lace or made of silk, puffy-sleeved dresses and blouses, beaver hats, and ruffled collars. The accessory industry was also booming: Gold and silver jewelry soon become an integral part of any fancy dress ensemble, as did fans, muffs, masks and, for the male set, fancy carved walking sticks and silk stockings.
New general guidelines put limits on the amount spent on clothing by people of lower classes in the sense that selectmen were assigned the task of determining whether or not citizens were guilty of allocating too large a percentage of their incomes to apparel.
Of course, the opinions and desires of the minister-driven legislature regarding fashion was often at odds with those of some area residents. The result was an ongoing tug of war between the two factions.
Court records and anecdotes from various North Shore communities bear this out. In his book "Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony," George Francis Dow tells of an unnamed 17th-century Ipswich minister who launched a verbal assault against the "nugiperous Gentledame" who had the nerve to inquire as to what the queen was currently wearing. The woman, who obviously was planning to adopt the latest fashion trend as set by Her Majesty, was chastised by the clergyman as being "the very gizzard of a trifle ... the epitome of nothing, fitter to be kickt, if she were of a kickable substance than either honoured or humoured."
Dow also notes that another clergyman, this one in Rowley, disinherited a nephew who insisted on wearing his hair fashionably long despite laws against doing so. (The wearing of wigs was also prohibited for a time in the mid-17th century). The courts in Salem and other local communities were not above ordering offenders to pay a fine and to have the offending tresses cut short.
At least on one occasion during the Salem Witch Trials, the matter of fashion, status and spending would become an important issue. One of the many local residents who testified against Bridget Bishop, the first of the "witches" to be hanged in 1692, was a Salem hatter and dyer of clothing named Samuel Shattuck. According to Shattuck's deposition, the accused often brought "sundry pieces of lace," in excess of what a good Puritan woman of her station needed, to him for dyeing.
Shattuck, says the historian Charles Upham, "evidently regarded fashionable and vain apparel as a snare and sign of the Devil."
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Jim McAllister of Salem writes a weekly column on the region's history. Contact him at jim@nii.net.
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