Vintage Fashion History — The Exquisite Charm of Pepe Le Pew

A three-quarter length coat by Bruyere in black wool with skunk fur sleeves. The model wears a hat with a wide up-turned brim which frames her face- Mary Evans Click

Seems one day on the 12th line of Ramsay became no joke for snow plower Mel Royce. Royce who once plowed the streets of Almonte and the 12th line of Ramsay encountered quite the stinky situation.

That snowy Wednesday day he was making progress up the line until he came across a skunk in the middle of the road that wasn’t too keen on moving. Well, Mel wasn’t going to move either with his snowplow and wondered why the skunk wasn’t hibernating with the rest of the skunks.

Well, as the standoff continued two young lads Alex Symington and Cecil McIntyre, decided they would do their good deed as it was also Boy Scout Week. They discussed a plan among themselves and then began to pelt the skunk with snowballs. The skunk still didn’t move from either defiance or stupidity. Minutes later with both sides trying to decide what to do, the skunk just decided to move and sit on the side of the road for a spell. I am pleased to also offer the news that Mel Royce finished clearing that road for everyone that lived on the 12th Line of Ramsay.

ANYBODY LOOKING FOR A SKUNK COAT?

It seems that skunk furs — properly deodorised of course —were once very much in demand for ladies’ coats and fur places. Mind you nobody walks into tho furrier and asks for a skunk coat. It’s like a lot of other products: it’s thoroughly disguised under some less offensive sounding name. In the 1940s a full-length skunk coat with bishop sleeves, hanging straight from the shoulders, might worn over a black velveteen two-piece jacket dress, the jacket all edged in white braid, and the dress featuring a high cowl neck. A Krimmer coat illustrated the new rounder, softer shoulderline. With it might be worn a poudre blue wool dress bound in matching velveteen, and a raspberry wool shirtmaker frock featured tucks at the shoulders and brass buttons. 

Skunk fur is rather long, with coarse, glossy guard hairs of about one to two inches, which have the qualities of strength and longevity. Normally the under-fur is grayish underneath the black guard hairs and white underneath the white guard hairs. If the more valuable all-black pelts were not used or available, the entire pelt was dyed a uniform, glossy black.

Skunk fur has been used in the fur industry as early as the mid 1800’s, gradually increasing in popularity into the 1900’s when it exceeded production of the most traded fur – Muskrat. As the United States recovered from the Great Depression a strong market for fur trimmed cloth coats created a demand for skunk, with pelts doubling in price into the early 1940’s. Previous to the 1950’s it was sold under different names including Alaskan sable, and American Sable.

Photo-Click here

After the identity of the fur was known, Skunk took a dive in popularity. This continued into the early 1970’s at which time the offbeat, unconventionality of it seemed to restore its appeal for a brief time after which it went out of use again. An upsurge in the popularity of Skunk fur has taken place with fashion houses such as Prada and Fendi using the black or brown-and-white varieties in items from handbags to throws and long, sweeping coats.

“The hop growers loved the skunk because they ate the hop grubs that damaged the hop vines. The hop growers of the state, centered in Madison County, petitioned the State Legislature to pass a law giving the skunk a closed season. Thus the skunk became the first New York State furbearer to have legal protection!” “Many times a farm boy could earn more in a season’s trapping than his father made in a year on the farm. Skunks saved some farms during the Depression by the income from their pelts.” Norman Evans, Stories From Old Georgetown

Written by Pauline Cameron & Katie Kemsley

February 23,2023–Wowsa. Just in, a 1930’s hand made skunk fur coat. Yup. Skunk fur. Possibly made by a trapper. Or Cruella Deville

We’re big fans of vintage fur here, which is finding a second “life”. And this is a really beautiful and interesting piece. Skunk fur is quite coarse, long and so striking.

In great shape except for one elbow, which could easily be repaired with a black fur patch. You won’t see another one of these soon! $325. Big Vintage– 95 Mill Street, Almonte, ON, Canada, Ontario-heybigvintage@gmail.com

CLIPPED FROMThe Windsor StarWindsor, Ontario, Canada22 Dec 1941, Mon  •  Page 11

CLIPPED FROMThe Windsor StarWindsor, Ontario, Canada07 Nov 1940, Thu  •  Page 31

Fleas, Skunks and Other Irritants — Linda Knight Seccaspina

RUMOURS -Raccoon or Skunk?? Fact or Fiction- Stanzel History

Skunk Street — Shane’s Field– Clayton – George Belton 1939

Things Borrowed from my Grandmother — Human Hair Nets

The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
21 Apr 1923, Sat  •  Page 23

Hair nets were made either from combings collected from men’s plaits by local barbers or from whole plaits which flooded the market in the years around the revolution of 1911. … With the advent of nylon the global demand for human hair nets plummeted.

I used to borrow two things from my grandmother- Her hairnets and her tie up shoes with cuban heels in mesmerising brown !!! I wore those shoes until they died and wore her hairnets as a snood. She just shook her head LOL

In the late 19^th century fashionable ladies in Europe began to replace their silk hair nets with hair nets that were hand-knotted out of human hair. Initially these were made by poor women and children in the rural villages of Alsace and Bohemia but production later spread to the Shantung province of China which became the most important centre of hair net manufacture, employing as many as 500,000 workers. By the early 1920s the human hair net had become an item of mass consumption, with American women consuming over 180 million nets in the year 1921-22. The appeal of the human hair net was that it was invisible, blending with or adding subtle highlights to a woman’s own hair.

1923

What is interesting is that wherever they were produced the nets were made exclusively from Chinese hair – much of it collected up from men’s combings. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries most Chinese men wore their hair shaved at the front and in a long plait or ‘pigtail’ at the back in a style which had been imposed by the ruling Manchu dynasty two and a half centuries earlier under penalty of death. When itinerant barbers tended to these pigtails, they saved the combings many of which ended up recycled into hairnets for the Western market. ‘No other hair possesses the right degree of coarseness and resilience to give that peculiar elastic spring to the mesh that a good hairnet requires’ argued the Textile Mercury in 1912, suggesting that the hair of the northern blonde races was too fine and soft, the hair of Italians and Spaniards a little more suitable owing to its coarser texture, the hair of the Japanese too stiff and the hair of yaks inadequate.

However when the bob became a fashionable hair style in Europe and America the hair net industry in China suffered a severe blow. Attempts were made to revive it with some success in the 1930s and 1940s when double mesh hair nets became popular. Using two rather than one hair at a time these nets were longer lasting and some of them were designed specifically for bobbed hair styles. But soon this fragile and ephemeral artefact, which had always been valued largely for its invisibility, had disappeared from European and American heads, replaced in many cases by nylon alternatives. Emma Tarlo

Did you know?

Ena Sharples, a character in the UK soap opera Coronation Street between 1960 and 1980, was famous for wearing a hairnet;  the original hairnet was brought in by the character’s actress, Violet Carson, to stop the make-up women from altering her hair.

Food service workers often wear it to prevent hair from contaminating the food, even though there has never been any scientific or anecdotal evidence that hair poses any health hazard. The man who started the trend of hairnets for food service workers admittedly lied about the dangers of hair in food, and his hairnet manufacturing company profited greatly from the propaganda and new regulations.

Hairnets are part of normal attire for female horse riders, and are worn in most equestrian disciplines, including dressage, eventing, show jumping, and hunting. Organizations such as the Pony Club encourage their young members to become accustomed to wearing hairnets when around horses, not only to ensure a neat and elegant appearance, but also to eliminate any danger of scalping, should the rider fall off and the horse tread on loose hair.

Ballet dancers typically wear one at the crown of the head covered in a fine hairnet.

Chattanooga Daily Times
Chattanooga, Tennessee
11 Feb 1923, Sun  •  Page 11

Additional reading..

How Many Times Should You Bathe?

Being a Tombstone Tourist

Know Your Travelling Salesmen!- Professor Dorenwend

Searching for A Good Hair Day — Linda Knight Seccaspina

The Stack Perm or the Disco Wedge ? 1970s Hair Fashion

Should Girls Speak to Strange Men in Uniform? 1917

Lois Lyman–A Hair of a Blunder!

To Die Dying Your Hair

Why Were These Folks Facing Backwards?

Scrapbook Clippings of Wampole

The Sears Roebuck Nursery Chair

The Best Little Chin Hair Post on the Prairie

As the Carleton Place Barber Pole Spins

Whose Barbershop Chair was This?

Victorian Surgery — Beware of Content Ahead!!! Seriously!

Vintage Easter and Bunny Cake Recipes from the 60s and 70s

1. Easter Bunny Cake recipe (1950)

A feather in your Easter bonnet — this luscious Easter bunny cake… Best cake you’ve baked in a month of Easter Sundays… and you… yes, you… can take all the glory!

Ingredients

1/2 cup Dexo (shortening)
2-1/4 cups sifted cake flour
3 teaspoons double-action baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1% cups sugar
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs, unbeaten

Directions

Measure shortening into bowl. Sift dry ingredients onto shortening. Add vanilla to milk. Add 2/3 of the milk.

Blend and beat 1 minute (count at least 150 strokes per minute). Add remaining 1/3 milk. Add eggs. Beat 2 minutes. Bake in two greased and floured deep 8-inch layer pans in moderate oven, 375° F for 25 to 30 minutes.

When cool, frost with butter frosting. Color coconut green, using vegetable coloring. Place on top of cake.

Arrange Easter candy bunny on coconut. Decorate with colored jelly beans.

Bake Swan’s Down Yellow Cake Mix in two 8-inch layers, following directions on package. Make Easy Chocolate Frosting, using the recipe on the back of the blue and yellow package of Baker’s Unsweetened Chocolate.

1. Cut each cake layer in two, about 1/4-inch off-center. This will make two large and two smaller pieces.

2. Place these four pieces together with frosting between them, the smaller pieces on the outside. Stand them upright, cut sides down, on a cake plate.

3. Trim the outside pieces at the top outer edges to help round off sides of cake for egg shape.

4. Then trim off lower ends of outside pieces, slicing diagonally, to give cake an oval shape at base.

Cover the whole mound with remaining frosting, filling in to make an egg shape. Decorate with white and tinted frosting and jelly beans. Make a nest of green-tinted Baker’s Coconut around egg. To serve, cut across the egg, making four-layer slices of cake.

When I go to a family reunion, or maybe church homecoming, THIS is the type of Coconut Cake I want to see on the dessert table.  One look, and you can tell it was made by a dear, older Mother or Grandmother, that’s been baking for years.  Sure, she wants it to look good, but she’s more concerned about how it tastes.

There might have been a day, years ago, when she could make her cake look like something in a bakery window.  Now, the years have taken a toll on her body.  Her hands shake a bit these days, as she adjusts layers and spreads the icing.  Her legs just don’t have the strength to stand at her table, and work and fuss with it like she once did. She has to take frequent breaks lately, just to rest awhile, so she can work on it a little bit more.

As a young child, she learned how to make this cake standing beside her own mother.  She’s never used a recipe, but now, her mind continues to wonder if she’s somehow forgotten a key ingredient.

All through the years, she’s heard people talk about how great her cakes are.  She just smiles, often looking downward as if embarrassed, but her heart is made happy as she tenderly says, “Thank You.”

Out the corner of their eye, everybody seems to watch when they realize her cake is being brought in. Some even strain their neck a bit, to see exactly where it gets placed among the others on the long table. You know hers will be the first empty cake plate on that table, and you have already schemed up a plan to get a slice.  Heaven forbid if someone should take the last piece before you get yours.

My mother made a great Coconut Cake, one that was similar to this one. Her icing was more of a clear type and you could clearly see the layers beneath that frosting and the layer of coconut spread on top. In the earlier years, she always used a fresh coconut, grating it by hand. She would always hand me the small leftover pieces that she didn’t grate, and that was like pure candy in my book.

Cake Ingredients: Sungold Coconut Cake

• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 cup Butter, at room temperature
• 4 Eggs, separated
• 1 cup Evaporated Milk
• 3 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• Pinch of Salt

Coconut Cream Icing

• 3 cups Coconut
• 3 cups Confectioners’ Sugar
• 8 Tablespoons Heavy Cream, approximately.
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

---

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

1. Place flour, baking powder, and pinch of salt, in a sifter.
2. Sift three times. Set aside.
3. Place butter in a large mixing bowl.
4. Add Sugar.
5. Beat butter and sugar to a smooth cream consistency.
6. Separate the egg yolks from the whites, set whites aside.
7. Beat the egg yolks well.
8. Add egg yolks to the butter and sugar mixture and beat until very light.
9. Add the sifted flour, alternating with the milk, to the first mixture, mix to combine.
10. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.
11. Add the vanilla extract to the batter mixture.
12. Gently fold in the egg whites to the batter.
13. Butter and flour two 9 inch cake layer pans.
14. Divide the batter between the two pans.
15. Bake at 350ºF for 20-25 minutes, or until done.
16. Insert a wooden toothpick or skewer in the center of the baked layer. If it pulls out clean, cake is done.
17. Remove from oven, place on a wire rack, let cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan.
18. Let layers cool completely.
19. Prepare layers as desired before frosting.

To Make The Icing and Assemble The Cake

1. Place sugar in a medium size mixing bowl.
2. Add the cream, a little at a time, beating steadily.
3. Add Vanilla.
4. When icing is of the right consistency, spread over the top of the layer.
5. Sprinkle a good layer of coconut on top of layer.
6. Repeat with the next layer.
7. Ice the final layer and sides of the cake.
8. Cover the entire cake with remaining coconut.
9. Serve and Enjoy!

ow to make an Easter Bunny cake:

This is a cake that my mom used to make for us on Easter Saturday from a pattern she found in a magazine back in the early 70’s. It’s simple and clever: one round cake serves as the bunny face and two simple slices in a second cake create the ears and a bow tie. You then frost, cover the imperfections with coconut (that’s what I do), and decorate with goodies.

Bunny cake diagram

This is the diagram from the old magazine clipping.

Mom used to frost the cake with boiled icing which looks lovely and bunny-like. I haven’t yet learned to make boiled frosting so use a simple white frosting instead. You’ll need a good 4 cups of icing to ice the cake.

Make your bunny cake with this molasses devil’s food cake

Easy creamy icing

1/4 cup soft butter

3 Tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

3-4 cups of icing sugar

Cream the butter with the milk and vanilla. Add the icing sugar one cup at a time until you get a spreadable consistency.

**You’ll need to double the recipe to fully frost a layer cake.

Related reading

‘Pet De Soeurs’ or Nun’s Pastries

“Get it On” — Banging Cookies Recipe–This Will Feel Wrong, but Trust Me!

The Invincible Ginger Snap Cookies of Carleton Place

Memories of Woolworths and Chicken in a Van

Slow Cooker Boston Baked Beans–Lanark County Recipes

Easy Christmas Cake- Lanark County Recipes

Holiday Popcorn– Lanark County Recipes

Granny’s Maple Fudge —Lanark County Recipes

Albert Street Canasta Club Chilled Pineapple Dessert

Recipes from Lanark County–Glazed Cranberry Lemon Loaf

Gum Drop Cake — Lanark County Holiday Recipe

Gluten Free–

Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar? Pastry Chef Ben White

“Sex in the Pan” Memories – A RIP Fashion Violation Photo Essay

Katherine Hepburn Did Eat Brownies

What Did You Use MIR Dish Soap For?

Dan Sparling
November 27 at 4:32 PM  · 

My toy bottle in 1965!

I hated MIR dish washing soap. It wasn’t because it was a bad soap; it probably was very good at what it was advertised for. What I could not stand was sitting at my Grandmother’s tiny kitchen table eating lunch or dinner and staring at the Yellow bottle ( it came in a few colours) while I ate as it stood as a loan sentinel on the side of the sink caked in dry soap. My Grandmother always the dishes done and the stove stoked but she never seemed to clean off that bottle– and that bottle looked like a wax candle after a week.

However I had no idea now or way back then that women used dish soap to get rid of greasy hair. Apparently, it has been going on since Little House on the Prairie.

Wild Poppy—Oh…do I remember this! And the same way my mother pronounced “mirror.”

Darlene MacDonaldThis was the best shampoo ever!

Linda Seccaspina— shampoo????? really? My grandmother used it to wash dishes.. tell me more..

Darlene MacDonaldLinda Seccaspina Yes this was our everyday dish washing liquid soap. When shampoo was scarce we used this as well. 

Dawn JonesDarlene MacDonald yep. Made your hair clean! And no conditioner in those days!

Peggy ByrneTwo to a package – was a deal

Karen SmithDarlene MacDonald I can barely remember it, jeez so long ago.

Wild PoppyDawn Jones still remember the nice smell of Mir.

Sandra HoustonMy Nanny used this dish soap

Kathy DevlinIn a house of 4 females we often ran out of shampoo and used sunlight dish soap. No greasy hair in our house but lots of shine!

Darlene MacDonaldLila Leach-James It was dish detergent. We used it as both 

Bev FergussonDarlene MacDonald so did we when needed. Those were days of making do with what you had!

Brenda BridgewaterYes dish soap Lila you don’t remember guess you didn’t do dishes !!!!

Lila Leach-JamesBrenda Bridgewater oh Jesus and had to bring the water up from the pump house! Glad those days are behind me! Yes, I guess we used it for shampoo also

Donna SmithMy mom used this didnt care for the smell myself

Kayla GleesonI remember these, my mom made crafts with them

Kayla GleesonLinda Seccaspina I remember them with doll heads on them??

Russ ThompsonTasted like crap lol

D Christopher VaughanYou shouldn’t have said that word then.

I will Wash Your Mouth Out with Soap!

Remember Halo Shampoo?

Peter McCallum — From Brown and Wylie Mill Employee to The King of Mack’s No Rub Laundry Soap

What the Heck was Electric Soap? Chatterton House Hotel Registrar

As the World Turns in Carleton Place — Soap and Ground Beef

Who was Cody the Kid in Carleton Place? — Soap Box Memories

As the Cell Phone Turns – a Soap Opera

How Many Times Should You Bathe?

When Everything Else Fails…

Linda Seccaspina
November 16, 2021  · 




From Stuart McIntosh this morning.
My Aunt Ethel McIntosh Ramsbottom recalled helping her grandmother making soap. “ They saved hardwood ashes in a barrel in the winter and in the spring the barrel was set on a base so that the edge was out over it. A hole was bored in the side of the barrel near the bottom and an iron pot set on the ground under the barrel. The boys and I carried water and put it on the ashes, and as it leached the ashes, the lye collected in the iron pot.
This was put in an iron cooler along with water and grease, and boiled over a fire most of the day. It had to be stirred often, a tedious job as the cooler was set on a stone foundation with a hollow under the fire. We used a stick(often a broom handle for stirring the soap.
When it was cooled enough, we put out the fire and put salt and water in the soap and left it till the next morning. At that time it would be firm enough to cut into bars and these would be set out on boards in the shed to harden.

From Jane Stewart

She Said Yes to her Grandmother’s Dress

 

Zion-Memorial United Church

September 5 at 10:53 PM · 

“SHE SAID YES TO THE DRESS” – was on Sep. 30th @ The United Church in Carleton Place This was a fashion show of wedding dresses – 120 years right up to the present hosted by Jan Ferguson and the ladies of the United Church, and it was so well done.

 

 

Model- Gracey Patterson

.

It’s pretty commonplace nowadays for brides to opt for a vintage wedding dress over a brand new gown. There’s something just a little bit magical about stepping into a piece of clothing that has a whole other history of its own. Not to mention it’s usually a heck of a lot cheaper. But would you ever consider recycling your grandmother’s wedding dress for your own day? Let’s face it, fashion’s completely changed since our grandparents were young. Plus – is it just me, or have you noticed how tiny women’s waists seemed to be back in those days?!

All things considered, choosing to make part of your wedding day less about what you want and more about honouring a treasured family member, be it your grandma or your mum, could end up meaning so much more than any new dress.

The relationships we have with the women in our family are unlike any other we experience in our lives. These strong women were our very first idols, teaching us about life and love, and doing anything they could to protect us, physically and emotionally, as we made our way from children to adults. When you were a girl didn’t you love to look at your mother and grandmother’s wedding gown?

 

This blue-ivory dress in the picture above that was featured at the United Church Fashion show was owned by Meghan Lavergne who took the top off of her Grandmothers wedding dress and made this keepsake dress. Her Grandmother was Norah Day nee Moffat.

 

 

Some of the dresses that were in the show.

 

 

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun and theSherbrooke Record and and Screamin’ Mamas (USACome and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place. Tales of Almonte and Arnprior Then and Now.

1. 
   

   The Wedding of Rosanna Ouellette

2. If You Can’t Wear a Princess Dress on Monday — Then When Can You?

3. An “Absolutely Fabulous” White Wedding Day — May 19th!

4. Linda’s Countdown to the Royal Wedding–May 18 –Day 7—“Let Them Eat Cake” said Queen Victoria

The Way We Wore — Thrift Shopping from Almonte to the UK — Almonte

Please play while reading

This is a tale of two Vicki’s–One is Vicki Racey from Almonte, Ontario and the other is Victoria Norris from the UK. Vicki Racey owns one of the largest vintage stores around in the heart of Almonte called Vintagewear. You will also see a few of her live mannequin models at the Carleton Place and Beckwith Museum place precariously among the exhibits after the tea at Ladies Who Lunch June 6th in Carleton Place. Victoria Norris lives in Ely, England and is one of our contributors to the Tales of Carleton Place.

I give you Vicki Racey

 

Mem’ries,
Light the corners of my mind

Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were

(furniture by Dave Goodings)

Scattered pictures,
Of the smiles we left behind

(lamps by Dave Goodings)

Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?

If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Could we?

If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Could we?

We simply choose to forget
So it’s the laughter

We will remember
Whenever we remember…

The way we were…

The way we were… There is still ice cream… but in memory of Petersen’s Ice Cream where many a wonderful summer night visit was spent.

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.
Bob Dylan

No Union Jack here but this is my very favourite picture of Vicki— as it show the love and passion she has for the things that we once wore.

The UK Blog

63 Mill Street – on the way to the Barley Mow through the arches- look for the green door

Almonte, Ontario

 

(613) 858-6348

Facebook

It’s Vintage Vicki Time!

http://www.vintagewear.ca/Vintage_Wear/Home.htm

Memories and Thoughts of the Grocery Store – Bubblews

Memories and Thoughts of the Grocery Store – Bubblews.

Don Draper — You’re Finger Lickin Fired! – Zoomer

 

Don Draper — You’re Finger Lickin Fired! – Zoomer.