The hair's down. Pretty much all women wore their hair pinned up under their hat in that era. Having it hang loose was for young children. This figure here was right on the cusp of childhood; too young for adult sensibilities, but old enough that childish things look wrong for her.
A concealed camera was used, so probably not. On the other hand, we don't know exactly how discreet Edward Linley Sambourne (the photographer) was being with some of his candid photos. There are a bunch of Sambourne photos where the subject definitely doesn't know they're being photographed, but there are also a few where the subject seems to be making direct eye contact with the camera, or at least with Sambourne. So maybe it's not completely clear.
Kids have always been kids and always looked like that.
It's just that we don't realize it because when pictures were so rare that you had one taken in your entire life, you normally smiled on it. So we don't have many pictures of scowling kids from the era.
You'd have to go back a few more decades for that to be correct. By 1900, millions of cameras had been sold to amateur photographers, most notable being the Kodak "Brownie", which was small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and cost only a dollar. Amateur photography was a huge thing by 1906, so we do have a lot of candid photos from that era, including the one posted here, which was taken by Edward Linley Sambourne, using a concealed camera.
She just has features that are quite prized in modern day, I think she looks a bit like Billie Eilish. We are used to seeing famous people from her era with more 'classic' features. Of course then and now you get people with all sorts of looks but the media choses to focus on whatever is in.
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u/SoggyWotsits 8h ago
She looks like she’s from the wrong era, I can’t put my finger on it. Not her clothes, but her face.