Because most people are familiar with Friends' historic plain dress, this is one of the questions most frequently
asked by people who want to visit. Actually, there never was a "Quaker uniform." Friends tried to avoid worldly
fashion in dress and so tended to dress in styles that were about one generation behind the times (When a style
has been around for a while it no longer seems quite so worldly).
Most Friends discontinued any form of Quaker dress early in the 20th century, when store-bought clothes became
cheaply available. It became very expensive to have clothes custom made to an older style and was thus actually
contrary to the original witness that one should not concern one's self unduly about clothing. Modern Friends
tend to wear simpler, more conservative off-the-rack clothing, and cannot be told by their dress
from most other Americans.
At our meetings for worship you will find all levels of dress from business suits and dresses
to jeans and cotton tops. What a person wears is simply not as important to us as the way a person lives.
