Marguerite McIntosh was a petite woman with an appetite for buying clothes. The morning after Christmas, she would be outside ritzy Bullocks Wilshire in Los Angeles waiting for the doors to open for its half-off sale.
The French immigrant was also a regular at high-end I. Magnin on Wilshire and, in Pomona, Buffums and Freeman Shoes, where she would go through box after box on sale days.
Marguerite, who stood 5-foot-2, wore small and extra small sizes, before petite was an official category. Her 7 1/2 shoes were quadruple-A, very narrow.
“Uncommon sizes didn’t sell,” her daughter, Catherine, explained the other day. “Pretty much everything, she got at half price.”
The stylish, Paris-born Marguerite taught French at Scripps College in the 1960s and at Mount San Antonio College in the 1970s and 1980s. She would dress up for the classroom — tres chic! — or for art openings with husband Harrison McIntosh. He was a well-known ceramicist who was part of the Millard Sheets cohort of artists around Claremont.
Harrison died in 2016 at 101. Marguerite lived to 100 — some of us were at her birthday party in August 2025 at her daughter’s home in Padua Hills — and died Nov. 22.
This year, Catherine got around to grappling with her mother’s legacy as a clothes horse. Marguerite had refused to part with any of her clothing, bought largely from 1960 to 2010, and which filled six closets and two storage units.
“She had 500 pairs of shoes!” Catherine said, laughing.
The Imelda Marcos of Claremont?
“She was almost a hoarder, but well organized,” Catherine continued. “She was a collector. She always said buying really good clothes was an investment. She had a good eye for quality and color.”
Catherine hired vintage resale consultant Lizz Adams, who spent five months sorting through it all. Adams separated items into three categories: the low end, which was donated to local thrift organizations; the high end, which she is selling online; and a middle tier, which was sold to the public last weekend.
“There were a lot of ‘Easter eggs,’” Adams told me from the cash register Sunday. “It would be Anne Klein, Anne Klein, Anne Klein, and then YSL” — Yves St. Laurent.
A whopping 3,500 items were out for sale in the lobby of Claremont Lincoln University, which was transformed into a pop-up boutique for the occasion.
Silk blouses, wool coats, hats, sweaters, dresses, belts, scarves, jewelry and, yes, shoes — including boots, sandals and high-heel pumps — were on racks or tables. The sale ran Saturday and Sunday after a Friday preview event.
(Before you complain that you didn’t know, our Community page gave you advance notice.)
On opening day, 40 or 50 petite women descended en masse. “It was like a sea of women my size,” marveled Catherine. “I don’t think I’d ever seen so many women my height before.”
Because of the petite sizing and very narrow shoes, slim young women from the Claremont Colleges were well represented among the shoppers. They like vintage style.
One student admitted to me Sunday that she’d bought 30 pairs of shoes. Marguerite would have approved.
Born in 1925, the former Marguerite Loyau was surrounded by art her whole life. Her mother, Jeanne, was an Impressionist painter. Her father, Marcel, was a sculptor.
After attending the Beaux-Arts de Paris, while helping the French Resistance on the side, she spent a year at Pomona College on a Fulbright. Harrison, whom she met in the Scripps art department, corresponded with her, proposed by mail and sent her a boat ticket to return. They married in 1952.
Marguerite founded the Claremont Museum of Art, now known as the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art, which opened in 2007 to honor the community’s decades of art activity. Catherine is on the board.
Proceeds from the weekend’s clothing sale — amounting to $15,300, Catherine said Monday — will go to the museum, housed since 2016 in the former Santa Fe Depot (200 W. First St).
About 3,000 of the 3,500 items sold. The remainder will be donated to thrifts or sold online or in consignment shops.
“I guess I will be spotting my mother’s apparel around Claremont for years to come,” Catherine said.
A few of the better outfits were withheld for a special destination.
Southwest Law School owns the former Bullocks Wilshire store and maintains an archive of its history. Said Catherine: “We took 25 pairs of shoes and 20 outfits that we donated to the Bullocks Wilshire archives.”
The items are back where they came from, and little the worse for wear.
Back at it
Figuring I might as well extend Labor Day, I took last week off for a staycation. This breather gave me time to catch up on separate days with two friends; finally ride the D Line subway, which had opened in May (what took me so long?), to LACMA; and visit the Huntington Library for the first time in possibly 15 years (where does the time go?).
Also, for the first time this summer, I saw a movie: “Coyote vs. Acme.” It really captures the spirit of the Warner Brothers cartoons, and I say that as someone who, at age 6, used to set his alarm on Saturday mornings for “The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour.”
That’s right. At 6:50 I would pad downstairs in my footed pajamas, let our black-and-white TV warm up and quietly watch the test pattern, ready to exult as the show’s “This Is It” theme song (“Overture! Curtains, lights!”) burst onto the screen.
My parents did not disturb my routine. It’s possible that the first Saturday, one may have asked the other sleepily: “Ehhh, who’s up, doc?”
Anyway, it was a relaxing week, one that carried a lesson. I take time off sparingly, seemingly unable to stop myself from working or thinking about work. (See today’s lead item, reported on the last afternoon of my vacation.) But I hereby resolve to step away more often.
In fact, I’ll be in San Francisco for a few days starting Friday. Will I miss a column? Possibly, but not necessarily. It depends on how quickly I can type the next couple of days. Wish me luck.
David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, doc. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.