A row of French and American colonial dresses. “We do a lot of costuming for PBS and the History Channel,” says Williamson. “When you’re making costumes the way we do, we’re not always being 100 percent accurate to the time period. We err towards the iconic, but we also want to go for comfort. So there isn’t as much boning as they would have worn, and there are hidden eyehooks and zippers, comfortable fabrics — that sort of thing.”