IMPERIAL — Local historical fashion enthusiast, Alanna Kruger, spoke at this month’s Pioneers’ Museum Friday Night Presentation: A Decade of Women’s Clothing, featuring a discussion on women’s fashion during Imperial County’s first decade.
A slideshow of clothes, undergarments, fashion accessories and more was shown alongside reproductions and authentic pieces of clothing from the years 1905 – 1915, most of which were part of the museum’s own collection.
Friday Night Presentations
Friday Night Presentations are held at the Pioneers’ Museum on the first Friday of each month, and they are free and open to the public. Each presentation features a different theme tied to Imperial Valley’s history.
October’s Friday Night Presentation was sponsored by Frye Chapel and Mortuary, allowing Kruger to speak to a crowd of more than 40 people about their ancestors’ clothing choices.
“Tonight there was a huge turnout,” stated museum director Angela Herrera. “This is something very, very niche — women’s historical fashion from 1905 to 1915, it can’t get much more niche than that … We were scrambling to get more tables and chairs, but it was our favorite problem to have.”
A Decade of Women’s Clothing
Alanna Kruger, the speaker of the night, was born and raised in Brawley, and holds a Master’s in Arts Administration from Southern Utah University.
Kruger has also studied theater arts with an emphasis in costume design, and has worked in theater for several years. She is very interested in the history of clothing, and creates her own clothing reproductions from scratch.
During her presentation, Kruger spoke about the different layers that women wore throughout the beginning of the decade, explaining undergarments such as the chemise, drawers and combinations.
Women also wore skirts and petticoats, and Kruger explained how corsets were very common in the early 1900s, as they were used as a tool to hold all layers of clothing together.
“Everybody was wearing corsets — women who worked,” Kruger stated. “You know, it was the turn of the century … the Golden Age, where the separation between the other upper class and the lower classes was huge, so it’s basically very little middle class. So, women were working — the 40 hour work week didn’t exist. Women were working 14 hour days, and they were all doing it in corsets.”
According to Kruger, fashion moved quickly throughout the 10-year period; skirts changed length, silhouettes became sleeker and hats came and went out of style.
One style of hat, ostrich plume, gained popularity for a short time during that period, and according to Kruger, ostrich farms were located in the Imperial Valley that manufactured the required feathers.
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“I did some historical research on the Valley, and we had a couple of ostrich farms here in the early 20th century,” Kruger said. “It was incredibly popular.”
At the end of her presentation, an audience member asked a question regarding what people did back then to keep cool, considering the fact that old-fashioned clothing seemed very hot.
“In the summertime, they were wearing something more … light and airy,” Kruger replied. “They also made ventilated corsets … everything between the bonings was made out of a mesh material … I mean, they were hot, they were sweaty, but they just learned to deal with it … and it seems to me that most people left … They would just pack everything up in the car and they would just be in the mountains for a couple months.”
Upcoming Events
The next Friday Night Presentation will focus on cyanotypes, which uses the sun or ultraviolet light and water to print images. It will be held on Friday, Nov. 6, at 6 p.m.
The museum will also be hosting a re-imagined Pioneer Day, and they are currently searching for volunteers to assist with set-up, stations and cleanup. Members of the public are encouraged to apply.
