‘London, Paris, New York, and Collingwood’: Reconsidering Pre-1945 Australian Fashion

Abstract

Collection-based institutions are burdened with the imperial history of conquest, acquisition, and enlightenment. For decades now, those associated with the discipline of art history have acknowledged the need to change its practices, methodologies, and value systems. These scholars, along with curators, realise that art history and public museums of all kinds must acknowledge postcolonial sensitivities, and the changing nature of the discipline is clear to see. Fashion, while previously under-theorised, is one area of visual scholarship that is now consolidating and expanding, with contributors from a range of disciplines. While globally there has been a recent massive upswing of academic-based fashion writing, in Australia this expansion has registered more quantitatively than qualitatively. If, as British curator Valerie Cumming suggests, the Australian academic Jennifer Craik's 'The Face of Fashion' (1994) was key in establishing an expanded placement of 'Fashion Studies', then it is surprising that the discussion of Australia's fashion history, especially on the era prior to 1945, remains so fragmentary.