--none being dress'd without a hoop...."[149]

And, again, perhaps the modern woman can appreciate the following
description of a costume seen at the inaugural ball of 1789: "It was a
plain celestial blue satin gown, with a white satin petticoat. On the
neck was worn a very large Italian gauze handkerchief, with border
stripes of satin. The head-dress was a pouf of satin in the form of a
globe, the creneaux or head-piece which was composed of white satin,
having a double wing in large pleats and trimmed with a wreath of
artificial roses. The hair was dressed all over in detached curls, four
of which in two ranks, fell on each side of the neck and were relieved
behind by a floating chignon."[150]

Unlike the other first ladies of the day, Martha Washington made little
effort toward ostentation, and her plain manner of dress was sometimes
the occasion of astonishment and comment on the part of wives of foreign
representatives. Says Miss Chambers concerning this contrast between
European women and Mrs. Washington, as shown at a birthday ball tendered
the President in 1795: "She was dressed in a rich silk, but entirely
without ornament, except the animation her amiable heart gives to her
countenance. Next her were seated the wives of the foreign ambassadors,
glittering from the floor to the summit of their head-dress. One of the
ladies wore three large ostrich feathers, her brow encircled by a
sparkling fillet of diamonds; her neck and arms were almost covered with
jewels, and two watches were suspended from her girdle, and all
reflecting the light from a hundred directions."[151]

Nor was this richness of dress among foreign visitors confined to the
women. Sally McKean, who became the wife of the Spanish minister to
America, wore at one state function, "a blue satin dress, trimmed with
white crape and flowers, and petticoat of white crape richly embroidered
and across the front a festoon of rose color, caught up with flowers";
but her future husband had "his hair powdered like a snow ball; with
dark striped silk coat lined with satin, black silk breeches, white silk
stockings, shoes and buckles. He had by his side an elegant hilted
small-sword, and his chapeau tipped with white feathers, under his
arm."[152]

There were, of course, no fashion plates in that day, nor were there any
"living models" to strut back and forth before keen-eyed customers; but
fully dressed dolls were imported from France and England, and sent f