Women's clothing exhibit at Acadian Museum dispels the myth of Evangeline's outfit
Curator says historical Acadian clothing much more diverse than people might think
For a long time, Annette Léger White says there wasn't much research being done into Acadian women's clothing.
After the popularity of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Evangeline, the idea of the typical Acadian woman was cemented in people's minds.
"The long skirt and apron, and the bonnet and the corset, or the vest and the neckerchief, those were the ones that were being used to represent the Acadian clothing," she said.
"Many people believed up until 20 years ago that there was only one simple traditional Acadian women's dress."
But Léger White grew up watching and learning from her mother's work as a dressmaker and knew that Acadian culture was much more than that.
"I wanted to represent all of the different social classes as opposed to perhaps just one," she said.
For the past 40 years, Léger White has been researching Acadian clothing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she began writing a book, L'Habillement des Acadiennes: Du mythe â la Réalité, or Acadian Women's Clothing: from myth to reality.
That book has now been brought to life through an exhibit of the same name at the Université de Moncton's Acadian Museum.
"But this one here is 1891 and it was worn by a woman from Shediac, N.B., who later with her husband ran a hotel in Richibucto," Léger White said, pointing to a dark-green silk dress with ruffled sleeves.
"So these gowns, these dresses have real stories to each of them."
Meticulous attention to detail
There are more than two dozen dresses, jackets, shoes and accessories on display at the museum. Many of them are authentic pieces collected by museums throughout the region over the past several decades.
"I've examined pretty much the back of most museums in the Maritime provinces," said Léger White, who previously worked as a textile conservator at the Acadian Museum.
Moncton's Acadian Museum.
But nine of them are recreations that Léger White created herself, after studying historical patterns, photos and documents.
"I learned more about the particular time period that I wanted to reproduce, to make sure I had the right number of colours or motifs, or size motifs or types of motifs, on each fabric" she said. "And of course the fibre, the natural fibre."
The exhibit begins with the earliest known Acadian period, when the French and English began colonizing the Americas.
"The textile industry was No. 1 in France. So, therefore, these people did not arrive with no knowledge. They had a vast amount of knowledge," she said.
From there, it moves through the grand dérangement, when Acadian women were dispersed all over the world.
"They also found themselves in centres that were highly fashionable," Léger White said. "So they would have been aware of the fashion of the period and the types of fabrics."
The third time period the exhibit explores is the Acadian renaissance in the late 1800s. There are even pieces as recent as the 1930s.
"I tried to make it as it would have been made at the time period as much as possible. I tried to sew everything by hand," Léger White said.
Wedding dresses, not casual clothes
Many of the historical items in the exhibit would've been worn as wedding dresses or "visiting dresses," rather than everyday clothing. Because these items weren't worn as often, they were more well preserved.
"A lot of handmade or homemade, if you will, homespun-type outfits," said Léger White.
One particular item on display belonged to Marie Landry, who lived just outside Memramcook. The elaborate two-piece burgundy outfit — a skirt with matching jacket — was worn around 1906 as a visiting dress.
"The dress is just right up to par with top fashion," Léger White said. "So that was worn by an Acadian, made by an Acadian, who was highly fashionable."
She said there's a similar dress on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. But the Acadian Museum also has, on loan from the family, the vintage Singer sewing machine that Landry would've used to make the dress.
As Léger White walks between the dress forms at the museum, she knows the story behind each. And, she said it's important to remember the stories from this region are as diverse as the dresses women wore throughout the centuries.
"Now we have gathered enough information, and publications have come out, to know that there were no one main clothing type that represented the traditional Acadian woman."
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