Capote (garment)

From the early days of the North American fur trade, both indigenous peoples and European Canadian settlers fashioned wool blankets into "capotes" as a means of coping with harsh winters.

[3] These were sold at HBC trading posts starting the early 18th-century, and were popular among traders for their "wrap" style, which was easy to move and hunt in.

Fifty years later, the habitants wore an altered form of the capote, possibly based on the then fashionable justacorps, or on the French military uniforms of soldiers stationed in New France at the time, such as the Carignan-Salières Regiment.

The altered knee length version had no buttons and was worn with a military sash (Ceinture fléchée).

All of them have a blue capote with a hood, which they use only in bad weather; the capote is secured round their waist by a military sash; they wear a shirt of calico or painted muslin, moccassins and leather leggings fastened round the leg by garters ornamented with beads,&c.

The Bois brulés often dispense with a hat; when they have one, it is generally variegated in the Indian manner, with feathers, gilt lace, and other tawdry ornaments.In the latter half of the 19th century the blanket coat was popularized amongst the European-descended population of Canada to the extent that it was looked on as national dress.

Perhaps even more significant for spreading the coat as a fashion was its wearing by the wives of Governors General, known as viceregal consorts.