---
node: fashion_na_contact
type: fashion
slug: contact_and_conquest_fashion
title: "Fashion at European Contact and Conquest"
lead: "At European contact and conquest, European and Indigenous dress met: Europeans in tailored clothing and armour, Indigenous peoples in traditional dress, as glass beads and cloth began to enter Indigenous dress through trade."
published: 2026-07-28
updated: 2026-07-28
image_file: contact_and_conquest_fashion.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_weroans,_or_chieftain,_of_Virginia_LCCN2001696964.jpg"
image_author: "Theodor de Bry, after John White (1590)"
image_license: "Public domain"
change: "Created as a fashion sub-page under the history section, with a period image (north_america region)"
requester: internal
reason: "Per the owner's decision, fashion lives under each history era"
---

## Overview

After 1492, two worlds met and dress too mingled — and clashed.

## Key garments and style

Spanish and other conquerors brought Western clothing such as the doublet and armour. Indigenous peoples kept their cotton and hide dress, but trade glass beads, metal and wool cloth were taken into adornment and embroidery. Conquest and disease gravely damaged Indigenous societies and their dress.

## Transition

In the colonial era, transplanted European dress took root across the continent.