Contrary to the popular image of the Pilgrim Fathers, the early settlers of the Plymouth Colony did not wear all black, and their capotains (hats) were shorter and rounder than the widely depicted tall hat with a buckle on it. Instead, their fashion was based on that of the late Elizabethan era: doublets, jerkins and ruffs. Both men and women wore the same style of shoes, stockings, capes, coats and hats in a range of colors including reds, yellows, purples, and greens.

A capotain, capatain or copotain is a tall-crowned, narrow-brimmed, slightly conical hat, usually black, worn by men and women from the 1590s into the mid-seventeenth century in England and northwestern Europe. Earlier capotains had rounded crowns; later, the crown was flat at the top.

The capotain is especially associated with Puritan costume in England in the years leading up to the English Civil War and during the years of the Commonwealth. It is also commonly called a Flat Topped Hat and a Pilgrim hat, the latter for its association with the Pilgrims that settled Plymouth Colony in the 1620s. Contrary to popular humor12-myth, capotains never included buckles on the front of them; this image was created in the 19th century

According to Plymouth Plantation historian James W. Baker, the traditional image was formed in the 19th century when buckles were a kind of emblem of quaintness.