​AMISH

Dress

 

Amish dress is a highly distinctive outward symbol of membership in the group. The idea is that a person's clothes should reflect humility and avoid individuality. Breaches of the Amish dress code may lead to a reprimand from a community leader.

Old Order Amish women wear modest dresses with long sleeves and a full skirt, a cape and an apron. They usually wear their hair in a bun on the back of the head, often covered with a prayer cap. Amish women don't use makeup.

Men and boys wear dark trousers, braces, straight-cut coats and broad-brimmed straw hats. Their clothes don't have stripes or checks. Amish men grow beards only after they marry and don't grow moustaches because 19th century generals wore beards and moustaches and anything military is shunned.

 

Dark blue, green, purple, brown and black are the most common clothing colours.