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Clothing
: Millinery Shop
: The Millinery Shop
by Edward R. Crews
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 ark Hutter has an impeccable
Savile Row style. When he becomes James Slate, a tailor freshly arrived in Williamsburg
from London in 1774, he embodies a mix of polish, deference and understated
confidence. He knows what an 18th Century gentleman requires in a wardrobe.
With equal skill, Hutter can offer advice on hats made from bobcat or beaver,
or breeches of deerskin or a winter coat made of the best English wool and crafted
to last a lifetime. "Green is a fine color," says Hutter, pulling a bolt of
cloth from a shelf in Colonial Williamsburg's millinery shop for an interested
visitor. "A great coat will last a long time. It's considered an investment
for a gentleman."
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| Restored Shop fronts Duke of Gloucester Street. |
Janea Whitacre, who portrays 18th Century storeowner Margaret Hunter, presents the same poised and
knowledgeableattitude when she welcomes
visitors as if they were customers. "What do you buy?" she asks, offering them
the traditional Colonial merchant's greeting. Her
line is the perfect icebreaker for 20th Century Americans. Products of a powerful
advertising-driven consumer society, they welcome the sales come-on, the invitation
to spend and enjoy. They also quickly discover at Margaret Hunter's shop --
often to their surprise -- when it comes to shopping, buying and keeping pace
with changing fashion our Colonial ancestors could teach us a thing or two.
Today, we tend to think
that in America during the 1700s clothing styles changed little with three-cornered
hats, wigs and floor-length gowns serving as fashion mainstays. Popular perception,
however, is wrong. Fashion in Colonial Virginia was vibrant, fickle, fleeting,
fun and something of an obsession for the middle and upper classes. It also
was part of the Trans-Atlantic trade between Great Britain and her American
colonies.
"Keep in mind that fashion
changed as fast as the weather in England and hence in Virginia, therefore what
style or philosophy was in vogue one year would be forgotten the next," said
Whitacre who oversees the interpretation at the millinery shop. "It is comforting
to know that 18th Century people were concerned about the rapidly changing fashion
and the amount of time, energy and money lavished on fashion as we are in this
century."
This 18th Century love
of fashion and the art of making clothes are expressed exuberantly, passionately
and pleasantly at Colonial Williamsburg's millinery shop. It is a bright, busy,
entertaining place. Through the skill and involvement of the shop's main three
tradespeople (augmented at times by other fashion trade interpreters), the clothes
of the 1700s come alive, taking on a vibrancy denied them in a static museum
display.
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Historic Triangle