Edith Head and her Hollywood designs might have been the main drawcard for fashionistas this weekend, but gown-loving history buffs were also delighted with a collection of rare outfits on show inside the Bendigo Trades Hall.
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Gold rush-era gowns of damask and brocade were the centrepoint of a vintage fair on Saturday and Sunday.
One dress, nicknamed Mrs Bendigo, was worn in the central Victorian town 150 years ago. It still belongs to a Bendigo family today.
The gold-coloured garment did away with the full skirt of earlier trends, but still had volume in the form of a bustle.
Seams Old proprietor Fiona Baverstock, whose company held the vintage fair, said the dress’ brocade and velvet details were an unusual combination and the garment was almost certainly made in the Australian colony, not shipped from overseas.
“The woman wore this was reputedly the first European woman married on the goldfields," Mrs Baverstock said.
It was rare to find gold rush gowns in such good condition, she explained.
Entry fees from the weekend will be put towards two touring exhibitions bound for Bendigo in the New Year.
Women of Empire – telling the story of First World War heroines – will revisit the city, while a collection of Regency era fashion, the likes of which Jane Austen’s characters would have worn, will also stop off in Bendigo.
Organisers have also been collecting letters penned to people lost at war, an archive that will be shown in France in 2018.
Mark Kearney
Journalist. Traveller. Pop culture connoisseur. Mark is passionate about education, the arts and social justice, especially stories affecting the LGBTI community.
Journalist. Traveller. Pop culture connoisseur. Mark is passionate about education, the arts and social justice, especially stories affecting the LGBTI community.
