No fans, and no national costumes among my family memories to match this week’s theme in Sepia Saturday. After all this is Australia and we have no national costume. All we have is embarrassment at some of the outfits worn by the Australian finalists in the Miss Universe or Miss World competitions when all the young ladies turn out in their national costume.
National costume mostly means something different to your usual everyday dress, some form of dressing up, and so I turn to other forms of dressing up at Castlemaine High School (Central Victoria) in 1946. The occasion was either the mid year Concert or the end of year Speech Night, both of which took place in the Castlemaine Town Hall.
From left to right, Margaret Bearlin, Barbara Fricke, Joy Cooper, Norma Woodward, Leonie Bryson
When I went searching for this photo I had thought the young lady was holding a fan, but no, she is just clutching her skirt.
Those were the days when, although it was a co-educational High School, it wasn’t thought proper to have both boys and girls in the same play. The girls had their one act play and the boys had theirs.
Prior to that c1938 , once again in Castlemaine, it was a case of dressing up as Grumpy (a bit of type-casting there) not long after the movie Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs came out. I don’t know what the occasion was.
Or you could go back to about 1910 at Murtoa when Vera and Hilda Tansey were all dressed up. I can’t explain why they were wearing these costumes.
Hilda on the right wears a sash saying M.B.B .for Murtoa Brass Band and is holding her father’s baton. She also has her father’s South Street medals pinned on her bodice. Vera on the left is wearing ????? . I think perhaps she is dressed as a flower, possibly a daffodil, with that frilly skirt. A lot of effort had gone into both costumes – i don’t think they came from any hire shop. And of course the dog had to be in the photo too. They were a doggie family.
And for more flirting with fans, national costumes or other forms of dressing go to the links on this week’s Sepia Saturday.
