Remember when I did these? I’m back to recapping on Twitter! Currently I am working on the 1985 mini-series and I realized I had fashion threads that I had never put on my blog!
So here’s that. Original thread found here. /editing! Laina out
In our last Anne fashion thread, we established what I believe is a timeline for the book Anne of Green Gables. I believe the timeline is 1890 to 1895, and showed you a whole bunch of pictures of fashion of the time.
Before we get super into this thread, I do want to address something I did plan on talking about last thread, buuuuut the thread got really long. This thread, and this view of history, is a very white, cis and abled view of history.
Residential schools began in the 1870s in Canada, for instance. History is often recorded by the privileged. And beyond that, I am not remotely qualified to talk about historical people of colour in this context as a white person.
However I do have a few neat pictures I’m going to share… as soon as I cull down the massive amount of photos I bookmarked. We don’t ah. Need 200 pictures in these threads. Your girl got SUPER carried away searching in the Canadian archive XD (1893 is seriously an amazing year for sleeve puffs.)
Editing Laina note: I’ve gotten more into using my tumblr again and I reblog a lot of cool pictues under the tag “historical fashion” so if you want to see more pictures, check that out!
Alright, let’s just look at some pictures I think are neat. These are Mi’kmaq First Nations people, in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia in 1891.
In this time period, Canada also had a huge Chinese immigrant population, but I had some trouble finding pictures from that time period. So this is a little later, from 1913, but it’s neat.
And in something relevant geographically to Anne, Nova Scotia had (and still has!) a significant Black population. For instance, Mary Matilda Winslow who as amazing. This pic is from about 1905 but again, trouble finding stuff.
She was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of New Brunswick. So just some pics I thought were neat.
Also, here is Mary Macdonald, Sir John A Macdonald’s daughter, who had hydrocephalus and used a wheelchair her entire life. And historical disability rep is neat.
Now let’s talk about hair!
So, hair. Interestingly enough, around this time period, “Titan blonde” hair was considered quite fashionable. That’s a golden-brown colour with a reddish tint. It’s the colour of hair Nancy Drew was said to have and that the old covers depicted her as having.
If you want a refresher on hair care in this time period, we talked about that in a previous post. Today we’re going to be talking about some styles from the time.
Do remember that girls Anne’s age in most of the book wouldn’t be wearing their hair up. Girls under 16 didn’t wear their hair up. It’d be either loose, or just braided. Wearing your hair up was a sign of adulthood, remember.
And some people did just wear more simple, slicked back buns. Not everyone was a super complicated style person.
(Also look at those amazing sleeves on the last one.)
One popular style was to take the hair around the crown of the head, make a top knot out of it, and then use curling tons to make waves/curls and pin those around the top knot. Often that layer of hair was shorter, deliberately or because of heat damage.
People would also use heatless curling methods like rag curls, but a lot of people used heated tongs. And kinda singed the crud out of their hair lol. Frizzy was in.
Also, bangs were in fashion! Short, frizzy, often singed bangs. But it’s one of not all that many historical time periods when bangs are in.
There are a lot of pictures of very intrique Victorian hair fashions, and I think that’s generally more of a special occasion thing, and especially more for people who are higher class. For Anne and Avonlea, I think this is more accurate.
If you’re doing your own hair, it’s probably not going to be as complicated as someone who has a maid to do it for them. (The first picture in this set is probably my favourite of all of these. So pretty.)
Also, these little straw boater hats were really in. But you have to keep an eye on where people are wearing them. They wore them quite far foward, not back towards the crown of the head. Hat placement is totally different depending on the time period.
The thing I think a lot of Anne adaptations may do is place it in the early 1900s as Anne grows – specifically into the Gibson Girl era. Which imo, you shouldn’t reach that while Anne is at Queen’s. (Aka the first book.)
It can’t worth with Sir John A Macdonald but fashion-wise it mostly works. Sleeves briefly got smaller towards like the early 1900s, but they really get big again around, like, 1905, so you can kinda swing it. It’s just kind of a pet peeve XD
(The Gibson girl aesthetic is based on the works on Charles Gibson. He had a Type, and the world was like, “Yeah that’s hot, let’s all do that” basically.) I just don’t think Anne should be wearing Gibson girl-style hair at 16/17 as that shouldn’t be happening yet.
According to my timeline, at least. Check out this magazine cover, for instance. It’s from 1895, illustrated by Gibson and more along the lines of what I’ve been showing. (And again a boater hat.)
You can also see this in this cover for College Girls by Abbe Carter Goodloe, released in 1895 and also illustrated by Gibson, and which you can actually read here.
Also around 1895 is like one of my favourite times for puffed sleeves, lol.
But when you compare what I think of as really being Gibson Girl hair in his art, it’s a lot bigger, and kind of looser. (Beach picture from 1898, other picture from 1908.) It’s just kind of a different vibe.
This kind of hairstyle is often called Victorian but imo it’s not really. It’s Edwardian and kind of a lot less mainstream before… maybe 1903? I personally think this hairstyle is more accurate to 1901-1910 time periods with some overlap on either side.
I probably won’t pick at this too much because I kinda love Gibson girl hair. It’s like an elegant bird nest. I like the aesthetic. But I don’t think it’s super accurate for Anne’s time period.
Shout out again to Library and Archives Canada, University of New Brunswick’s Archives and Special Collections, New Brunswick Black History Society, and the Canadian Museum of Immigration.
Laina Has Too Much Spare Time 