Fashion Sketch by Celeste Schmon

Celeste Schmon, Fashion Sketch with Fabric Swatch (1918) Arthur A. Schmon fonds, RG 524, Archives and Special Collections, Brock University Library

This is a sketch done by Eleanor Celeste Schmon (née Reynolds) in 1918. It was sent with a letter to her husband, Arthur A. Schmon, on March 16th of that year. Arthur Schmon was a member of the Brock University Founders Committee which helped to establish this university.

Celeste sent Arthur a number of letters while he served in the United States Army during World War I. With this letter, she included a sketch of an outfit she was having made and attached a piece of fabric to further enhance the description she gave. The outfit in the sketch is labelled with considerable detail and is quite on-trend for the time period in which it was drawn. The straight and slender silhouette was highly popular, and the tassels on the sketch also popped up in Vogue magazine fashion illustrations at this time. Due to the reduced household incomes during the war, new outfits were often less affordable for many, so Vogue suggests layering tunics over dresses for a fresh and new look. While Celeste was having the outfit made new, her clever layering choices align her with the forecasted fashions of the season.

Letters were an important form of communication in the 19th and early 20th centuries and reading them today allows insight into the daily lives of their authors. In the letter accompanying Celeste’s sketch, she writes about her days being uninteresting due to their similarities. She frequently wrote about going to the movies, shopping, and visits with her friends. In this particular letter, Celeste writes about a visit she had with her friend whose husband has been wounded in battle. This prompted Celeste to write “Please, darling, be careful,” before signing off with hugs and kisses.

Celeste was involved with the Red Cross and worked as a substitute teacher in New Jersey, USA. Arthur and Celeste met in high school; they became engaged in 1917 and were married in August 1919. In other letters to Arthur, she writes playfully about her family, her students, frequent trips to the movies, and signs off most of her letters with a selection of nicknames
including “Lessie,” “Bubbles,” and “Wifie.”

-Text by Nicky Hiscox (VISA 2P90)

*This image is part of the “Women, Water, and Words” exhibition that students in VISA 2P90 curated in the Winter 2024 semester.