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Fonds - Sperber, Lawrence | McCord Museum
Sperber, Lawrence
Sperber, Lawrence
Sperber, Lawrence

Fonds

Sperber, Lawrence
Date 1926-1976
Dimensions29 cm of textual records. - 9 iconographic documents
Origin Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Object NumberP753
CollectionMcCord
CreditGift of Professor Murray A. Sperber
Biographical Sketch

Lawrence Lazarus Sperber was once one of Canada's most prominent representatives of the Montreal garment industry. Born in Montreal, he worked briefly for local manufacturers and attended McGill University for one year before leaving for New York. There he studied for six months at the Women's Textile School, went on to train with Hattie Carnegie, and then worked as a cutter and patternmaker in dress houses on Seventh Avenue.

Upon his return to Montreal in 1933, Sperber opened a manufacturing business, Sperber Bros. Ltd, at 1470 Peel Street, with his older brother Sydney. Lawrence's 1933 wedding to Gladys Epstein from Hamilton, Ontario, brought him family ties to Freiman's Department Store in Ottawa. This connection was a factor in his early success and helped support his business throughout the Depression and the Second World War.

Sperber was primarily a dress manufacturer. For his fall 1934 collection, he designed a series of velvet and fur-trimmed evening gowns. He took inspiration from the 19th century for a fall 1936 collection with hoop skirts. Sperber expanded into sportswear and "informal townwear" in 1938. He began exporting to Australia and South Africa as early as 1934, and opened a London office in 1936, but the war brought an end to these endeavours. He continued to export to the US, however; in May of 1941, Lord & Taylor in New York displayed a Sperber pantsuit in their window. That June, Sperber launched a collaboration with Quebec-born American designer Nini Turcotte, producing a series of "lounge suits" with soft blazers and wide-legged trousers in Courtauld rayon fabric.

Sperber's wide range of price points helped his business thrive and prepared him for the restrictions imposed by Canada's Wartime Prices and Trade Board. In June 1942, he presented a collection of styles designed to accommodate W.P.T.B. regulations and emphasized the durability of his fabrics.

By 1946, Lawrence was president of his own company Lawrence Sperber Ltd. and gained a higher media profile around this time. He was a member of the Montreal Fashion Institute and would host both a press breakfast and fashion show twice a year at both Montreal Fashion Weeks. Thanks to his international acclaim and exports, Sperber was hailed as the designer who put Canada on the map as a garment producer. He proclaimed himself "Canada's Foremost Fashion Designer" in numerous advertisements. He was amongst the designers named in the National Film Board of Canada's 1946 Fashions by Canada, and in 1951 was the featured designer in It's the Fashion! Both films were created to promote Canada's post-war fashion industry.

Sperber received publicity for a number of collaborations with fabric manufacturers. In May 1946, he created a dress from print fabric produced by Bruck Silk Mills that was inspired by Toronto illustrator Alice Bradshaw's design for a cover of Mayfair magazine. He also designed gowns in "Ultra Violet" fabric by Bruck for Revlon's makeup collection of the same name and garments that were featured in Celanese Designer Fabrics and Celanese Creative Fabrics advertisements in 1946 and 1947. In the fall of 1947, Sperber designed a series of dresses in a Bruck "Red Feather" print for the Welfare Federation Community Chest charity drive, and in summer of 1948, a dress in a Bruck "Maple Leaf" print for the Toronto Trades Fair. His continued use of novelty fabrics was also seen in his fall 1948 collection, with one named "Canada Goose," and in fall 1951, with newsprint fabrics.

In 1947, a Lawrence Sperber dress was advertised in Vogue. A collection of his dresses offered at Galeries Lafayette in London sold out within a day. Sperber was the only Canadian designer to participate in the International Trades Fair in Casablanca. He did not initially like the "new look" style of 1947 because of the increased amount of fabric required for a dress, but in the fall of 1948, Sperber designed "new look" doll clothes for a department store display.

In 1949, he participated in an all-Canadian fashion show at the Club France Amérique in Paris and the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver. In spring of 1950, Sperber sold dresses at Blum's on Madison Ave in New York. He designed a black cocktail suit for British actress Nadia Gray and a series of garments for a wool promotional event in Mexico. In November 1951, Sperber acquired licensing rights to produce garments with the Kymont Sleeve, a sleeve design with a gusset patented by Nini Turcotte and her husband. He licensed the sleeve to other firms for low-priced men's, women's, and children's wear.

Sperber also endorsed a number of products made by other manufacturers. He was quoted in ads for Dominion Corset's Nu-Back model in 1949, Mercury Dark-Seam Nylons in 1950, and the Playtex Fabric-Lined Girdle in 1952. A Sperber gown also featured in advertisements for Rubberset toothbrushes.

In late 1953, Sperber closed his dress manufacturing plant and opened a shop at 1442 Mountain Street, which he ran until 1976, the year it was destroyed by fire and his wife passed away. In the 1980s and 1990s, he split his time between Montreal and Palm Beach, Florida, enjoying a retirement career as a sculptor.

From:

Cynthia Cooper, "Lawrence Sperber," in EncycloFashionQC, 2019, https://encyclomodeqc.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/entry/lawrence-sperber/


Scope and Content

This fonds focusses on the professional activities of fashion designer Lawrence Sperber (1905-1996), between 1926 and 1976. It contains information about his companies in Montreal, where he was based for most of his career, his fame in Canada and his influence outside the country. It includes valuable textual and visual resources about Canada's post-war fashion industry.

There are minutes of meetings, stationery with Lawrence Sperber Limited letterhead, and documents associated with marketing the designer's creations, such as a radio script from 1950 and various advertisements. The fonds also contains a gouache sketch of a front cover of Mayfair magazine as well as accounting and financial records, including a union dues booklet. In addition, the fonds holds newspapers mentioning Sperber, along with books and magazines related to the fashion industry.

Four scrapbooks chronicle the work of Lawrence Sperber between 1934 and 1953. More specifically, they illustrate the designer's renown during the post-war period with numerous press clippings, fashion photos of outfits designed by Sperber and images of his products in store windows. Newspaper articles, gathered by a news agency, provide information about characteristic features of his dresses, the stores that sold his clothing, his creative process and the events in which he was a participant.

Finally, in addition to textual documents, the fonds contains eight photographs, five of which depict Lawrence Sperber himself. These images record the first lots of clothing created by Sperber to be sent by plane to London and New York. They also show the designer in the company of distinguished persons like Countess Mountbatten (Edwina Mountbatten) and journalist Kate Aitken at Montreal society events in 1949.


Classification Scheme

P753 Sperber, Lawrence
     P753/A Minutes, 1933
     P753/B Communications materials, 1947-[ca. 1976]
     P753/C Accounting and financial records, 1926-1976
     P753/D Press clippings, 1947-1952
     P753/E Books and magazines, 1940-1950
     P753/F Scrapbooks, [19-?]
    
P753/G Photographs, 1947-1949


Notes

Source of title proper: Based on the creator of the fonds.

Physical description: The iconographic documents include one gouache painting and eight photographs.

Physical condition: A magazine page entitled "Dress of the Month" is laminated.

Immediate source of acquisition: The fonds was donated to the McCord Museum in 2012 by Lawrence Sperber's son, Professor Murray Sperber.

Language: The documents are in English and French, but primarily in English.

Finding aids: An inventory of the documents assembled in the scrapbooks is available.

Related group of records: The McCord Museum's collection includes several groups of records associated with fashion, such as the Marie-Paule Nolin Collection (C726), Jean-Claude Poitras Fonds (P689), Betty Guernsey Fonds (P349), Jacqueline Levasseur Simard Fonds (P159) and the Fashion, Fabrics and Clothing Collection (C609).

General note: A dress (M2003.144.1.1-2) with a Lawrence Sperber label is preserved in the McCord Museum's Dress, Fashion and Textiles Collection.

 

Last modification: April 14, 2020


Information about the objects in our collection is updated to reflect new research findings. If you have any information to share regarding this object, please email reference.mccord@mccord-stewart.ca.

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This project is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Azrieli Foundation and Canadian Heritage.