68 AWW.COM.AUAUGUST 2017
ROBERT CAPA © INTERNATIONAL CENTRE OF PHOTOGRAPHY/MAGNUM PHOTOS/SNAPPER. NEWSPIX. FAIRFAX. GETTY IMAGES.ABOVE: June
Dally-Watkins, in
Dior in the 1940s,
exercised for
weeks to create
the “Dior shape”.“The Women’s Weeklywas big,”
recalls June. “Everyone had to buy
it.” Australian women flocked to
The Weekly’s parades in Sydney,
Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane,
and although they couldn’t buy the
frocks on display, the host department
stores had dressmakers churning out
thousands of credible copies.
Just months after those
groundbreaking parades, a then
unknown French designer called
Christian Dior launched his thrilling
first collection in February 1947 to
a standing ovation. Mary met with
him in Paris, showcasing his designs
inThe Weekly’s French Fashion
Parades later that year.
With his so-called New Look,
Dior created a fresh silhouette,
revolutionising fashion overnight
and defining international haute
couture for the next decade.
Instantly, the contents of every
woman’s wardrobe were
seemingly obsolete. Dior did
away with what he described
as the “hideous and repellent”
military styles that came with wartime fabric
rationing, and brought back unbridled femininity.
“I designed clothes for flower-like women,” Dior
explained in his autobiography, “with rounded
shoulders, full feminine busts and handspan
waists above enormous spreading skirts.”
Dior wasthename in Paris, Mary informed
her readers. She included a black Dior cocktail
dress inThe Weekly’s French Fashion Parades
that spring, and readers were treated to a pattern
of it in the magazine so they could whip up their
own versions at home.
Understanding the importance of new world
markets – and that few Australians could visit
Paris – Dior collaborated with David Jones in
1948, sending out 50 couture originals for a
series of exclusive parades of his autumn-winter
collection, first in Sydney, then around Australia.
Speaking toThe Sydney Morning Heraldat the
time, Dior declared that “living in the sunshine
of a comparatively new country unscathed by
war, Australians have a cleaner, brighter outlook
and are more receptive to new ideas than the
tired people of European countries”.
It was the first time a full Dior collection had
been shown outside Paris, and mannequins had
to have an 18-inch (or 45cm) waist. June Dally-
Watkins remembers exercising for weeks to
whittle her already tiny waist down to the
required size. When the auditions
rolled around, June made the cut
and strode the catwalk in “Dolly”,
the collection’s signature gown
made from 100 metres of white silk
organza and 100 metres of white
lace over tiers of ice-blue taffeta.
She still recalls the “perfection”
of the Dior garments, their detailed
embroidery and full skirts layered
with petticoats to accentuate the
waist. “The fashions were so
exciting, they left the war behind
us,” recalls 90-year-old June,
who still runs her international
finishing school. “They made
people feel happy again – we
wanted to look feminine and
pretty as well as beautiful.”
The parades were staged in
department stores over afternoon
tea. “It was an elegant,
glamorous thing for ladies to
do – an afternoon out for them,
even if they didn’t buy anything,”
recalls June. “And they were
all dressed incredibly well.
Women had style in those days.”
The onerous dress codes of the time only
fuelled the intense interest in fashion. A well-
dressed woman required smart suits, dinner
dresses and extravagant ball gowns, not to
mention elegant accessories and complex, waist-
cinching underwear. A day outfit necessitated
the appropriate shoes, gloves, hat and umbrella;
cocktail dresses were for early evening, but not
after 8pm; and a ball gown meant matching high
heels and long white gloves.
It was arguably the most beautiful period in
fashion, andThe Weeklygave Australian women
a new understanding and appreciation of it.
“By far the most important innovation is the
absolute banishing of any kind of shoulder pad,”
the magazine reported in 1948. “No matter what
shape the shoulder, even the most sloping, it must
be left in its natural state.”
Over the next decade, Dior frocks featured
regularlyinThe Weekly’s fashion pages and
Christian Dior himself identified Australia as the
third most important market for French fashion
after Paris and New York. Overseas buyers,
usually from department stores, paid a surcharge
of 40 to 50 per cent on each garment so they had
the right to make copies, and they bought the
designs without trying them on, often in the
form of a toile or paper pattern. Paradoxically,
although haute couture was traditionally an»“The fashions were so
exciting, they left the
war behind us.”