Stays were imbued with symbolic meaning in the 18th century. Detail from A Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth (1735).
The Lewis Walpole Library
Like a supportive hug, stays provided fantastic bust and lower back support, while gently and comfortably shaping a woman’s torso.
ABC
Whether you like Ladies in Black or not will depend on if you like shopping, fashion, stories with female leads about female friendship, clever music and 60s costumes.
Eloise wearing her summer muff in Bridgerton.
Liam Daniel/Netflix
Silk muffs were often made at home and offered women a blank canvas for sartorial self-expression.
Transworld/YamabikaY/Shutterstock
‘Gemstones are the earth’s creation, but they are a human fascination.’
University of Melbourne Archives
I’ve been leafing through Foy & Gibson catalogues from the first four decades of the 20th century to try to understand what attracted Australian customers to wearing wool.
The dress actress Lupita Nyong'o wore to the 86th Academy Awards in 2014 became a story in and of itself.
Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage via Getty Images
Through their media savvy, two consultants were able to make the Oscars as much about the attire as the gold statuettes.
Shutterstock
The average price of a wedding dress in Australia is A$2,385 – but this is just one reflection of their significant cultural and emotional weight.
A British mantua c. 1708.
The Met/Purchase, Rogers Fund, Isabel Shults Fund and Irene Lewisohn Bequest, 1991
If you’ve watched many period dramas, you’ve probably seen a mantua. It was worn over a pair of stays (corset) and an often contrasting petticoat. The draping fabric created a front-opening gown.
Dazzle camouflage costume ball at the Chelsea Arts Club in 1919.
Wikimedia
Pyjamas all Christmas day or a jaunty festive silk scarf, these five trends should be brought back this holiday.
PUMA X RIME NYC Luxe Sky Wedge (2013), Ed Reeve, Design Museum London.
Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street is now on at HOTA on the Gold Coast.
Josephine with her hair in the coiffure à la victime style in Napoleon.
LANDMARK MEDIA/Alamy Stock Photo
A shorn haircut known as the coiffure à la victime, paid tribute to guillotined prisoners whose hair was loped off before execution.
Dior Men summer 2023 group shot in front of a Charleston reconstruction.
Brett Lloyd
The Bloomsbury group’s distaste for formality helped to set the foundations for how we dress today.
Top Dog factory for men’s hats, Surry Hills, 1941.
State Library of New South Wales
A heritage-listed hat factory has burned down in Surry Hills. The suburb was once a hub of fashion manufacturing.
Anne Hathaway, Jared Leto and Salma Hayek at the 2023 Met Gala.
EPA-EFE/Justin Lane
At Georgian masquerade parties, participants flaunted their status, taste and wealth through ostentatious and creative dress.
Designs by Denni Francisco at Australian fashion week 2022.
Stefan Gosatti/Getty Images
Wiradjuri woman Denni Francisco will be the first Indigenous designer to have a solo show at Australian Fashion Week.
Portrait of Madame Gely by Frederick Carl Frieseke (1907).
Public Domain Review
From Madame de Pompadour to punks and pussy protest hats, pink has always been the colour of choice for those who dare to make a statement.
Installation view of T he Widows of Culloden collection, autumn winter 2006 - 07 in Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse on display at NGV International from 11 December 2022 - 16 April 2023. Headpieces by Michael Schmidt
Photo: Sean Fennessy
Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse at the National Gallery of Victoria is an important fashion exhibition that makes us consider how all the visual arts are inter-related.
Carla Zampatti middriff top and pants, 1971.
Photograph: Warwick Lawson
Zampatti Powerhouse at the Powerhouse Museum is one of the best-looking fashion exhibition designs Australia has seen.
Remnants of polychrome colouring were scrubbed from recovered ancient Greek sculptures and artists created new all-white marble sculptures seen as continuous with an imagined past.
(Shutterstock)
Western fashion, laundering and style reflected the racialized politics dramatically shaped by profound global transformations bound up with slavery, colonialism and modernization.
Now a symbol of Japanese culture, the Kimono has Chinese roots.
supawat bursuk/Shutterstock
The Kimono is a distinct cultural symbol of Japan and for that reason, it has a complicated reputation around much of Asia.