The ‘best clothes’ donned for Sunday and formal occasions might be of dark material, but daily garb ran the spectrum of colors. Russet was favored, at least in New England, but reds, yellows, blues, and greens were also common. . . .
The lively colored outfits of the first settlers became more subdued as men moved into the backcountry. As James Axtell has remarked, ‘Colonial woodsmen quickly found that for stalking wild game or enemies — or being stalked — red coats, blue trousers, and yellow waistcoats were signal failures. Far better were the forest’s natural dull shades of brown and green.’
—David Freeman Hawke, Everyday Life in Early America, 1989.
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