Coat
Category
Textiles
Date
1830 - 1900
Materials
Wool, felt, silk and leather
Place of origin
North America
Order this imageCollection
Snowshill Wade Costume Collection, Gloucestershire
NT 1349287
Caption
Capotes are hooded wrap coats made from a single wool blanket. Worn by diverse fur-trading communities, they became an emblem of the Canadian wilderness. This one was made by a Métis or First Nations’ woman in Canada using a durable Hudson Bay Company blanket featuring woven black lines. Métis, Cree and Huron Wendat women wanted to dress their beloved family members in beautiful warm clothing for hunting. Adding protective designs to male outerwear fulfilled their role in fostering human and animal relations, ensuring the patterns pleased the animals and secured hunting success. The designs are comparable to other handmade Huron Wendat items sold as tourist arts. Such blankets can evoke memories of the intentional spread of smallpox to Native North Americans during the Seven Years War (1756– 63) and the later epidemics that ravaged communities. Fashioning capotes continues today as a practice of reclamation and healing. Christo Kefalas.
Summary
Coat - A Native American or Canadian Aboriginal coat possibly made from a Hudson Bay blanket (cream/indigo wool). It is decorated with strips of quillwork on a leather ground applied onto the collar, cuffs and as epaulettes trimmed with beads, felt and tufts of animal hair. The collar sides are edged with red silk and the hood seam trimmed with red felt. All other seams are piped with pieces of indigo wool. It fastens with horn buttons. (male)
Provenance
Given to National Trust with Snowshill Manor in 1951 by Charles Paget Wade
References
Antrobus and Slocombe 2025: Helen Antrobus and Emma Slocombe, 100 Things to Wear: Fashion from the collections of the National Trust, National Trust 2025, pp. 102-103.