Turbans and Head Wear
Women in the colonies were much less likely to wear a turban than women in England, where wealthy women sported them as part of their costumes at elaborate dress balls.
Nonetheless, covering one's hair was the norm, with simple linen or cotton caps used for daily wear both inside and outside the home. Out of doors, a woman might top her cap with a hat. The plainest caps, called mob caps, had gathered tops and slightly frilled edges. Hats were typically made of cotton or straw and worn plain or covered with fine silk.
Other elements to the fashionable woman's attire might include ribbons, either worn around the neck, or, as in the portrait of Elizabeth Murray's niece, Dolly, in the hair and at the back of the neck, as a tie for the fahionable strands of pearls she is wearing.