Women's clothing exhibit at Acadian Museum dispels the myth of Evangeline's outfit

Victoria Walton · CBC News

· Posted: May 12, 2025 4:03 PM EDT | Last Updated: 18 minutes ago

For a agelong time, Annette Léger White says determination wasn't overmuch probe being done into Acadian women's clothing.

After the popularity of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Evangeline, the thought of the emblematic Acadian pistillate was cemented successful people's minds.

"The agelong skirt and apron, and the bonnet and the corset, oregon the vest and the neckerchief, those were the ones that were being utilized to correspond the Acadian clothing," she said.

"Many radical believed up until 20 years agone that determination was lone 1 elemental accepted Acadian women's dress."

But Léger White grew up watching and learning from her mother's enactment arsenic a dressmaker and knew that Acadian civilization was overmuch much than that.

"I wanted to correspond each of the antithetic societal classes arsenic opposed to possibly conscionable one," she said. 

For the past 40 years, Léger White has been researching Acadian clothing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she began penning a book, L'Habillement des Acadiennes: Du mythe â la Réalité, or Acadian Women's Clothing: from story to reality.

That publication has present been brought to beingness done an grounds of the aforesaid sanction astatine the Université de Moncton's Acadian Museum.

"But this 1 present is 1891 and it was worn by a pistillate from Shediac, N.B., who aboriginal with her hubby ran a edifice successful Richibucto," Léger White said, pointing to a dark-green silk formal with ruffled sleeves.

"So these gowns, these dresses person existent stories to each of them."

Meticulous attraction to detail

There are much than 2 twelve dresses, jackets, shoes and accessories connected show astatine the museum. Many of them are authentic pieces collected by museums passim the portion implicit the past respective decades.

"I've examined beauteous overmuch the backmost of astir museums successful the Maritime provinces," said Léger White, who antecedently worked arsenic a textile conservator astatine the Acadian Museum.

Moncton's Acadian Museum.

WATCH | 'There was a deficiency of research,' but Annette Léger White is changing that:

But 9 of them are recreations that Léger White created herself, aft studying humanities patterns, photos and documents.

"I learned much astir the peculiar clip play that I wanted to reproduce, to marque definite I had the close fig of colours oregon motifs, oregon size motifs oregon types of motifs, connected each fabric" she said. "And of people the fibre, the earthy fibre."

The grounds begins with the earliest known Acadian period, erstwhile the French and English began colonizing the Americas.

"The textile manufacture was No. 1 in France. So, therefore, these radical did not get with nary knowledge. They had a immense magnitude of knowledge," she said.

From there, it moves done the grand dérangement, erstwhile Acadian women were dispersed each implicit the world.

"They besides recovered themselves successful centres that were highly fashionable," Léger White said. "So they would person been alert of the manner of the play and the types of fabrics."

The 3rd clip play the grounds explores is the Acadian renaissance successful the precocious 1800s. There are adjacent pieces arsenic caller arsenic the 1930s.

"I tried to marque it arsenic it would person been made astatine the clip play arsenic overmuch arsenic possible. I tried to sew everything by hand," Léger White said.

Wedding dresses, not casual clothes

Many of the humanities items successful the grounds would've been worn arsenic wedding dresses oregon "visiting dresses," alternatively than mundane clothing. Because these items weren't worn arsenic often, they were much good preserved.

"A batch of handmade oregon homemade, if you will, homespun-type outfits," said Léger White.

One peculiar point connected show belonged to Marie Landry, who lived conscionable extracurricular Memramcook. The elaborate two-piece burgundy outfit — a skirt with matching overgarment — was worn astir 1906 arsenic a visiting dress.

"The formal is conscionable close up to par with apical fashion," Léger White said. "So that was worn by an Acadian, made by an Acadian, who was highly fashionable."

She said there's a akin formal connected show astatine the Metropolitan Museum of Art successful New York City. But the Acadian Museum besides has, connected indebtedness from the family, the vintage Singer sewing instrumentality that Landry would've utilized to marque the dress.

As Léger White walks betwixt the formal forms astatine the museum, she knows the communicative down each. And, she said it's important to retrieve the stories from this portion are arsenic divers arsenic the dresses women wore passim the centuries.

"Now we person gathered capable information, and publications person travel out, to cognize that determination were nary 1 main covering benignant that represented the accepted Acadian woman."