THE LIFE IMAGES COLLETIONC/GETTY IMA
GES. THE AUS
TRALIAN WOME
N’S WEEKLY.
[ Anniversary]
AUGUST 2017AWW.COM.AU 67
ABOVE: Seven
“famous Dior
mannequins” who
came to Australia
for the fashion
parades graced
the cover ofThe
Weeklyin October- OPPOSITE:
Christian Dior’s
elegant designs
epitomised the
golden age of
haute couture.
“
The fashions madeus happy again
”
As a new exhibition celebrates 70 years of Christian Dior,Susan Horsburgh
looks back at the thrilling early days of the design house and talks to Dior model
June Dally-Watkins about its special relationship with Australia andThe Weekly.
A
s Australia emerged from
the dark, devastating
days of World War II,
women hungered for
a return to normality.
Better still, they wanted beauty and
glamour – and they found it in fashion.
Tired of the boxy, masculine looks
of the austere war years, Australian
women turned to the salons of Paris for
inspiration. At the same time, France
was desperate for an economic recovery
after four years of German occupation,
keen to re-establish itself as the
undisputed hub of haute couture.
Postwar Parisian designers rose to the occasion
in spectacular style – none more so than Christian
Dior – and so began the golden age of haute
couture, characterised by wasp-waisted models
in iconic, deeply feminine ensembles.
On August 27, the National Gallery of Victoria
will present the never-before-seen exhibitionThe
House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture,
not only displaying the design house’s most
memorable gowns, but also exploring its special
affinity with Australia. Remarkably, the first
complete Dior collection to be shown outside
of Paris was paraded at David Jones in Sydney
in 1948, and nine years later, just a month after
his untimely death, the designer’s last collection
was showcased in Australia in a series of parades
sponsored byThe Weeklyfeaturing seven top
Dior models flown in from France.
The 1957 parades marked the culmination
of a decade-long relationshipThe Weeklyhad
nurtured with Dior from the earliest days of
the label, when Australian women reignited their
love affair with French fashion. ForThe Weekly,fashion took a back seat during the
war years, but in 1946 it appointed
an elegant new Fashion Editor, Mary
Hordern, a socialite, Francophile and
sister-in-law of the magazine’s owner,
Frank Packer. With her impeccable
taste, Mary soon became a formidable
authority on style, takingThe Weekly’s
glamour and fashion coverage to
sophisticated new heights.
June Dally-Watkins, a top Sydney
model at the time, still remembers
going to lavish cocktail parties at
Mary’s home – “truly enchanting
evenings” where the cream of Sydney
society “behaved with impeccable manners,
wore black tie, full-length gowns and dined
on French-inspired delicacies”.
Such was the obsession with all things French
that Mary travelled to Paris in 1946 to organise
the first ofThe Weekly’s four annual French
Fashion Parades. After inspecting some 5000
designs from the leading couturiers – Jean Patou,
Pierre Balmain and Edward Molyneux among
them – Mary chose 120 fully accessorised
ensemblesthat captured the essence of French style
yet suited Australian life, and hand-picked four
French mannequins (as models were known) to
parade the clothes in department stores around the
country. The inaugural gala event – at The Great
Restaurant in Sydney’s David Jones in September
1946 – was the must-have ticket of the season
and caused such a sensation thatThe Weekly
staged three more French fashion extravaganzas,
in 1947, ’48 and ’49. The parades were a coup for
Australia and a PR masterstroke forThe Weekly,
which hit a circulation of 700,000 in 1946 (when
the population was less than 7.5 million).»Dior in Australia