Washington, as noted, bought his clothes in England; but it was from necessity more than choice.  “If there be any homespun Cloths in Philadelphia which are tolerably fine, that you can come reasonably at,” he said to his Philadelphia agent in 1784, “I would be obliged to you to send me patterns of some of the best kinds—­I should prefer that which is mixed in the grain, because it will not so readily discover its quality as a plain cloth.”  Before he was inaugurated he wrote “General Knox this day to procure me homespun broadcloth of the Hartford fabric, to make a suit of clothes for myself,” adding, “I hope it will not be a great while before it will be unfashionable for a gentleman to appear in any other dress.  Indeed, we have already been too long subject to British prejudices.”  At another time he noted in his diary with evident pride, “on this occasion I was dressed in a suit made at the Woolen Manufactory at Hartford, as the buttons also were.”  But then, as now, the foreign clothes were so much finer that his taste overcame his patriotism, and his secretary wrote that “the President is desireous of getting as much superfine blk broad Cloth as will make him a suit of Clothes, and desires me to request that you would send him that quantity ...  The best superfine French or Dutch black—­exceedingly fine—­of a soft, silky texture—­not glossy like the Engh cloths.”

A caller during the Presidency spoke of him as dressed in purple satin, and at his levees he is described by Sullivan as “clad in black velvet; his hair in full dress, powdered and gathered behind in a large silk bag; yellow gloves on his hands; holding a cocked hat with a cockade in it, and the edges adorned with a black feather about an inch deep.  He wore knee and shoe buckles; and a long sword, with a finely wrought and polished steel hilt, which appeared at the left hip; the coat worn over the sword, so that the hilt, and the part below the coat behind, were in view.  The scabbard was white polished leather.”

About his person Washington was as neat as he desired his clothes to be.  At seventeen when surveying he records that he was

“Lighted into a Room & I not being so good a Woodsman as ye rest of my Company striped myself very orderly & went in to ye Bed as they called it when to my Surprize I found it to be nothing but a Little Straw—­Matted together without Sheets or any thing else but only one thread Bear blanket with double its Weight of Vermin such as Lice, Fleas &c.  I was glad to get up (as soon as ye Light was carried from us) I put on my Cloths & Lay as my Companions.  Had we not have been very tired I am sure we should not have slep’d much that night.  I made a Promise not to Sleep so from that time forward chusing rather to sleep in ye open Air before a fire as will appear hereafter.”  The next day he notes that the party “Travell’d up to Frederick Town where our Baggage came to us we cleaned ourselves (to get Rid of ye Game we had catched y.  Night before)” and slept in “a good Feather Bed with clean Sheets which was a very agreeable regale.”