Higher in the social scale men wore doublets and full breeches and clothed themselves as well as their estates permitted--sometimes even better than they could well afford. Sleeves were slashed. Falling bands at the neck were common and a deep linen collar appears in portraits of the period. A beaver or felt hat with steeple crown was worn, and gloves, sometimes elegantly embroidered, were essential. The accepted idea of Puritan dress should be revised and the Victorian standard of sentimental simplicity be discarded. There was great variety of fabrics available in the shops of London and Bristol as will be noted in the list at the end of this chapter, and as wealth permitted probably much of this material eventually found its way to the shelves of the shopkeepers in Boston and other of the larger seaport towns. The following list of clothing each man should provide himself with on sailing for New England in 1629, when the Rev. Francis Higginson came over, is so specific that we can easily visualize the male company that arrived at Salem that year. NOTE. As several excellent books are available that treat exclusively of costume in the colonies, it has not seemed necessary to elaborate on the subject in these pages. The following notes however, are thought to be of interest. 4 peares of shoes. 4 peares of stockings. 1 peare Norwich gaiters. 4 shirts 2 suits dublet and hose of leather lyn'd with oy'd skin leather, ye hose & dublett with hooks & eyes. 1 suit of Nordon dussens or hampshire kersies lyn'd the hose with skins, dublets with lynen of gilford or gedlyman kerseys. 4 bands 2 handkerchiefs 1 wastecoat of greene cotton bound about with red tape 1 leather girdle 1 Monmouth cap 1 black hatt lyned in the brows with lether 5 Red Knitt capps mill'd about 5d. apiece 2 peares of gloves 1 Mandillion [mantle or great coat] lyned with cotton 1 peare of breeches and waistcoat 1 leather sute of Dublett & breeches of oyled leather 1 peare of leather breeches and drawers to weare with both there other sutes. Fine clothing surrounded itself with fine furnishings, according to the standards of the period, and as the wealth of the Colony increased with the successful exportation of fish, lumber, beaver, and peltry, it supplied them with all kinds of luxuries and refinements. The ships were crossing frequently and the Colony kept pace with the mother country much as the country follows the city at the present time.