I just obtained this very interesting and delightful image of a group of friends posing in hats. From the sleeves on the women’s dresses I believe the date is around the mid 1890s but I may be wrong. It has a late Victorian rather than an Edwardian feel to it.
Take a close look at the person in the centre of the picture who is dressed up in male attire. I have looked at it fairly closely and believe that this may be a woman dressed up as a man. This was quite a lark in Victorian times and did not necessarily mean that the woman was gay. It was just a statement – you know it was “a man’s world” at the time. Author George Elliot who died in 1880 was actually a woman. Probably quite a trip for ladies to dress up in men’s clothes and drink port – a kind of Victorian parody. Most of the talk about homosexuallity was around men and not women and transgender was not part of the vocabulary. The 1890s was the “Gay Nineties” but then it meant something different – a bit like the 1920s partying period.
Why do I think the person appears female?
- The facial features are very smooth and the person appears to be beyond puberty.
- Hands are quite small.
- There is a feminine looking ring on the left hand – looks like an engagement ring.
- The bowler (derby) hat sits very high on the head rather than just above the ears as it should sit (Bolivian women style). Probably this is due to the hat sitting on top of masses of hair as worn by women in the age.
- The figure is shot straight on but appears to have no side burns – they were quite common in men during the period.
- Eye brows appear plucked.
- The Jacket appears way too oversized and sits uncomfortably on the person.
There is no clue on the writing on the back of the picture taken in London, Ontario Canada. It says “Amy Skill and friends”. Is Amy the figure in the middle?
In any event is a fun image. We do think that stuff like cross dressing is quite recent but actually that’s not true and as I say it did not indicate an LBGT tendency necessariy. Kind of a cool lark I think in this case.
Any thoughts about this?
I love the hats on the two people each side of the male figure. The hats are well pinned and perched on top of enormous bee hive type hair styles. It must have taken hours to comb out the hair.
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Hats off to your detective skills! Sherlock Holmes has some competition.