Ester Sauvain came to America from Switzerland in the mid 1850s with her parents. While she left her homeland behind, she brought with her the customs of her religion, including the modest outfits traditionally worn by women of her faith.
Week 29: Fashion
Ester was a worshiping Christian of the Mennonite faith. The Mennonite church is a denomination of Anabaptists named after Menno Simons, who typically practice adult baptism and stand for pacifism.
In the United States, there is common confusion and a lack of distinction at times between the Mennonite and Amish communities as they are both sometimes referred to as “plain people” and tend to wear plain dress, however, the general difference is that Mennonites live a simple life, but do not avoid advancements in technology or electricity like the Amish do.
While it’s not confirmed if Ester’s parents or church practiced specific costume guidelines in Switzerland, there is photo evidence proving it was institutionalized in her family when they settled in Ohio and Missouri.
Mennonite women in the 1800s were to always keep their hair long, pinned up, and parted in the middle with a bonnet affixed (typically referred to as a Quaker bonnet). They also commonly wore a “cape” over their shoulders with a plain, handmade dress and black stockings. Depending on the geographic location and especially the decade, the style of clothing varied widely amongst the many sects of Mennonites.
Two of her daughters, Sophia and Lizzie, were also clearly Mennonite church members as their fashion was a dead giveaway, but it doesn’t appear that any of her sons or her daughter Julia continued on in the faith.
With such rapidly changing clothing trends through the decades and it becoming easier and easier to update one’s wardrobe by simply purchasing a new blouse at a local store, it must be difficult for religions, such as the Mennonite church, to convince members to continue producing their own plain clothes and retain them in worship.
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