Drunk Tailor and I will be up to more mischief this summer, and you can join us! We’re teaching a class this June at Historic Eastfield Village. Among the things you can learn to make are chemisettes, reticules, gaiters and neck stocks.

We plan to start with the basic question: who are you? And what does that mean for what you wear? What visual and extant sources can inform your choices? From John Lewis Krimmel to Sophie Du Pont, images help paint a picture of a distinctive early American style.

Collections from Rhode Island to New York contain examples of early garments that help us understand how people dressed in the early 19th century, as well as diaries that tell us how they lived. Fortune telling? Sewing for money? Bored with quilting? Church as a social experience? There’s much more to the early nineteenth century than Jane Austen. Come find out more this June.