An Agreeable Tyrant: Fashion After the Revolution

It’s 1781. The Revolution is over, and we are no longer colonists! We are citizens of an independent nation.

But wait—are we going to follow English and French fashions? The royal courts and aristocracy set the fashion. We’re trying to be democratic now! Should we make up our own styles? Should we wear only American-made fabrics, even though they are in short supply? What’s a patriotic American to wear?

“An Agreeable Tyrant”: Fashion after the Revolution considers how Americans fashioned a new identity through costume. Displaying over fifty manikins in twelve period rooms, the exhibition explores men’s and women’s clothing from 1780 to 1825.