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