So my question is: How do you know for sure George Washington wore the velvet suit you discovered at Sulgrave Manor?

So the question of whether or not these items were worn by George Washington is, is the central challenge to this project.

Um, only a small number of Washington's surviving garments have firm documentary dates attached to them, and only one of the surviving garments is clearly recorded as being worn more than once.

But what that means is most of George Washington's surviving garments have not had a proper investigation to prove its authenticity, but beyond that, to prove where these garments fit within George Washington's life.

So there's really a lot of complexity in the surviving material.

And so what I do is treat each garment as a piece of evidence.

I look at provenance, construction, materials, the wear patterns, stains even, those are really important, and then compare all of that with the documentary record and other surviving garments.

Ugh