52 Ancestors Week 29 Fashion

  From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 29's theme is "Fashion." It's fun to look at old photos and think, "How did they wear that?!" Corsets, bustles, wool suits, and ridiculously large hats seem so impractical (not to mention heavy!) Any fashion mavens in your family tree? What about an ancestor who had their own sense of style or someone associated with the fashion industry? I can't wait to see the posts and photos this week! Feel free to share them in the free Generations Cafe Facebook group.

Not exactly Tommy Hilfinger

      Fashion has long played an important role in our society. In just two thousand years we went from wearing togas and tunics to wearing bellbottoms and platform shoes! Come to think of it that could have just been in the same year. From what I've been told the 1970s were weird. No stranger than the 1980s and 1990s, mind you! In olden times, what people wore was often a sign of your social status. I have long maintained that the fancier your hat was, the more important person you were. It's that or you really like having exceptionally long feathers in your cap. 

Quite dapper!

   Over the course of your lifetime, fashion can change incredibly quickly depending on style and what's "cool" at the time. This was very much the case when it comes to the life of my 2nd great-grandmother, Georgianna "Little Grammy" Ross. Don't let the name fool you. She was mostly French-Canadian as she was born to Jean Baptiste Ross and Marguerite Metivier in 1876.

    In this picture dated some time in 1891, she is clearly wearing a fancy hat and what appears to be a corset. Being a guy, I have to wince at those because those things look so uncomfortable. I feel so bad for anyone who had to wear them for Renaissance Fairs or even television shows. Jeri Ryan had to wear a corset for her role as the former Borg drone Seven of Nine in "Star Trek: Voyager". Can you imagine her relief in not having to wear them for "Star Trek: Picard"?! She still looks amazing nineteen years after Voyager ended!

    I digress. Geogianna was fifteen years old when this picture was taken. She's in the front row and on the left. Her husband Joseph Laplante is on the far right. His hat is silly. But, it's not nearly as elaborate as Georgianna. For teenage girls in the 1890s, this was the height of Victorian era garments. Long dresses that showed serious ankle. I'm not going to judge. She made that outfit work even if it was clearly uncomfortable. Look at her face. Even back in the 1890s, teenagers gotta be teenagers. What is it about the '90s in every century that bring out the attitude? At least she probably didn't listen to N'Sync. She would totally listen to Nirvana.

Ahh, to go to the beach and not
need sunblock....

    By the roaring 1920s, Georgianna was living the high life on Plum Island! The beach was a stone's throw away from where the Laplantes lived in the city of Newburyport. Here she is wearing what I presume is a bathing suit. She's once again on the left with her sister Clara on the right. Joseph's in the middle looking pleased with himself. Apparently, he was quite a character from what my grandfather told me.

    Swimsuits of the 1920s were a lot more liberal for Georgianna than the outfits she wore when she was a teenager living in Manchester, New Hampshire. So much skin was showing and I think she's even wearing a swimming cap, too. Her sister has one as well. I've never seen anyone wear those things outside of the Olympics. It's cool and very aerodynamic! I bet she cut through the water like a torpedo! =D 

    Again this isn't a bad look for the time period. Georgianna seemed to keep with the times and kept up with what was fashionable and what wasn't. The bathing suits are actually in line with what I used to see in cartoons from 1930s and 1940s. Fashion trends were changing for people and especially women in those days. I often wonder what she'd think of swimwear one hundred years after this photo was taken. Can you imagine the culture shock?! Yikes!

That's my mom getting hugged by Joseph!

    In the 1950s, Georgianna was in her seventies. The days of wearing corsets and swimsuits were long gone as she settled for what can only be described as "The grandma" look. This was the look my mother remembers the most. The fancy hat. The glasses and most importantly the long hair kept in a single braid. You can't see it in this picture. I assure you. It's there.

    You can also see why the family called her "Little Grammy". She was like 4 feet tall and my grandfather is towering over both him AND his mother. I would say "There's something in the water in Newburyport". But, given the history of the Merrimack River it may be a little bit of a sensitive topic. Keep the Merrimack clean, guys! The EPA has rules, ya know!

  I really like this post-war picture of my grandfather, his mother and his grandparents. There's just something really nice about seeing the family together like this. My mother told me that the picture was probably taken at the Laplantes' house in Newburyport. That would make sense. I also figure that this picture was taken sometime after May of 1951 because the baby my great-grandmother Clara is holding is one of my aunts.

Georgianna!

    As the 1950s marched on, things clearly changed for my 2nd great-grandmother. She was now a great-grandmother to four children and her fashion sense changed with the times. She's seen here wearing a polka dot shirt. I should colorize the photo and the rest of these photos to see what colors they were. Then again accuracy would vary. Someone with blue eyes could get brown eyes for some reason.

    Time was still good to her and by this point she had to have seen the drastic changes taken place in the world of fashion. Leather jackets. Greasy hair and caddies ruled America by this point. Hey, man. That was the style. The hipsters and beatniks were just a preview of what was to come!

    Georgianna lived through the turbulent 1960s and though I don't have many pictures of her from those days, I can assume she still kept on changing with the times. She ended up passing away in 1973 at the age of 97. That's a pretty good run! Given how long she lived, she has seen the world change from corsets to bellbottoms.

Clara, Georgianna and Doris 

       This last picture is dated March 10th, 1964 and has three generations of women in it with Georgianna, her daughter Clara and Georgianna's granddaughter, Doris. At this point, horn-rimmed glasses were all the rage for older women, I guess. I do like that vintage television in the background. It's a far cry from what we're used to in the 21st century. Though, I do remember the dials on the old television we had in the 1980s and who could forget the rabbit ears?

    I'm trying to decide if she's wearing the same polka dot shirt she was wearing in the 1950s photo. It wouldn't surprise me. People are sentimental about the clothes they own even if they go out of style. Some people latch onto their wardrobe of choice and never throw out that polyester jacket they haven't worn since the Carter administration. Some clothes you donate. Some you keep. It's just how life is, you know.

 Through Georgianna you can definitely see how much the world changed from 1891 to the decades before her death in the 1970s. Women began having more clothing options and yes ladies the lack of decent pockets on pants baffle me too. Seriously. What's up with that? A changing world clearly affected her clothing choices. We're likely going to see more change in fashion as time goes on.   In just ninety-seven years a lot can change and one of those things is definitely the world of fashion. We could be wearing completely different things in ninety-seven years! It's interesting to think of what the world would look like in 2121. Will we be living on Mars? Who can say? The sky's the limit.

See ya next time!