We’re having a fashion show!

As you probably know by now (if you’ve followed my incessant ramblings about Trethewey House), Trethewey House was completed in 1920. In its heyday, the Abbotsford Lumber and Mining Company was the third largest employer in the province. Comparatively speaking, that puts Mr. Trethewey on the map as wealthy, and that affluence shows in the house. The plans for the house were bought from the Sears and Roebuck Catalogue, but as a difference to most folks who bought homes from the catalogue, Mr. Trethewey only purchased the plans, not the whole kit. He used locally produced materials in the house, such as brick from Clayburn, and, of course, lumber and shingles from his own mill, to construct this beautiful Arts and Crafts style bungalow than now sits at the heart of Abbotsford.

The style in which the house is built is emblematic for its era. So often when people want to hear about the Trethewey family and their home, they assume that we’re speaking about a time that lies farther back in history. Although it is true that our first pioneers came here at a time when “Little House on the Prairie” style clothing would have been worn, and that the Trethewey brothers came here just after the turn of the century, this house was built by Mr. Trethewey in 1920 for his third wife, Reta, and their son Joey. Reta was nothing like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Reta was a 1920’s flapper! So, on Wednesday, April 23rd at 6 PM, the MSA Museum Society is proud to present a fashion show of vintage 1920’s clothing in concert with fashions for today’s modern woman. Ivan Sayers is a fashion historian who specializes in the study of women’s, men’s, and children’s fashions, from 1650 to the present. Sayers has one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of historic clothing in private hands across Canada, and on April 23rd he will be bringing some of his 1920’s collection to The Old Spaghetti Factory on Sumas Way for a fashion show unlike no other. Be prepared to be wowed!

The 1920’s style was new and dazzling, a break with previous tradition that embraced all things modern. It was the result of many socioeconomic changes. Fashion was no longer just for the rich, as it was quite simply easier to sew a flapper shift than to piece together the earlier styles that had used up yards and yards of expensive fabrics, lace, buttons and other decorations (in archaeology we call that ostentatious wealth). In the 20’s, those who were very rich could still show it by using very expensive materials, such as silk, but the not-so-rich could still afford the style by using the same pattern but cheaper fabrics. This negated some of the social differences that had been more obvious before. That, in turn, was a societal change that was the result of, among other things, WWI.

Flapper style didn’t actually truly begin until the mid-1920’s. It was only really between the years 1926 and 1928 that, with the Charleston craze, the evening dress hemlines actually rose up to be in line with day dress lengths. That is the true Flapper style! It entailed ridding yourself of corsets and boning and donning shorter than before shapeless shift dresses, a new style of make-up and short, sleek hairstyles.

So what about the great metropolis of Abbotsford in the 1920’s? For that, I will cite Mrs Margaret Weir in One Woman’s Words, published by MSA Museum Society:

“There were a couple of barber shops for men and in Mr. Hunt’s shop on the south side of Essendene. There was also his pool room. These daring women went in to the pool room, climbed into the chair only men used before this daring advent, and had their hair “shingled”. We were free of hair that had to be “done up,” but permanents hadn’t come into being and wouldn’t be in Abbotsford until 1930, so there we were with “bobs,” all looking alike.”