Today’s post features some interesting fashions from Montreal at the turn of the century.
This is Miss M. Ethel Arnton, in 1890. This picture is very different to most I’ve seen. Not too many women wore their hair down. It doesn’t look like the usual portrait—close up but looking off to the side is unusual. Her dress is a different style than most in the 1890s She looks more like Crystal Gale than an 1890s apparition. People tended to age faster then. Despite her appearance, she probably was no more than 20.
McCord Stewart Museum Montreal
This is Miss M. Beaty in 1891. I would go pretty far out of my way to avoid her. She looks pretty mad and is that a baton in her hand? Her dress also alarms me. I’m sure that dress could stand on its own like a medieval suit of armor. She reminds me of Miss Libbey.
McCord Stewart Museum Montreal
.Mrs. Heaton, pictured here in 1890, looks like a Gibson Girl with a gravity defying hat. I’m a fan of high collars and her cloak is really pretty.
McCord Stewart Museum Montreal
Lastly, I have a picture of another overstuffed library in 1899. I have an idea that the owner of the room, Mrs. David Morrice, was friends (or more likely frenemies with Mrs Charles G. Hope, whose decorating choices we recently critiqued. Mrs. Hope is a little more advanced, in my opinion, but they definitely had similar inclinations. The owner of the library is in the picture but there is so much going on that locating her is a bit like Where’s Waldo.
McCord Stewart Museum Montreal
old spirituals 
Miss Beaty looks like a very angry school marm. I think that’s the handle of a parasol in her hand. Mrs. Hope is definitely a hoarder. It must have taken her two days to find that book and somewhere to sit down in that room! I love Mrs. Heaton’s classic beauty and lovely cloak. Ethel has beautiful hair and I’m thinking she must have been a model or an actress to deviate so much from the norm in a photograph.
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You’d think the photographer might help Miss Beaty out a bit. “Could you
try to look a little less infuriated…. maybe not quite such an aggressive posture…?” Mrs. Heaton is very lovely. She looks theatrical too… maybe she was an actress?
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I am enthralled by the “overstuffed library in 1899.” Exploring the photo in close-up is insightful. From the planter on the podium in the center of the room to the small statue of a banjo playing man on the small table to the cornice and ceiling moulding throughout the room, all are inductive of the Gilded Age. The ornate cornice work was typically made of plaster and required a skilled craftsman to create.
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I congratulate you on being able to examine it so closely. I get claustrophobic when I look too closely!
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Being a lifelong DIY homeowner and an enthusiast interior designer, studying homes of the Golden Age and the Progressive Era provides a history of the craftsmanship of the past and the FF&E (Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment) that have been or might be modernize.
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