A history of Madame Weigel's paper pattern series of dressmaking patterns. Madame Weigel was the first manufacturer of patterns in Australia, her business base in Melbourne. From there, her patterns sold across Australia and New Zealand to millions of women who sewed at home, or for their business. Each pattern was issued in her fashion journal, Madame Weigel's Journal of Fashion, the first fashion journal in Australia.
Look at the Hilzinger washing machine, costing £3 in 1880. It certainly seems rather primitive but did it get the clothes clean and how hard was it to operate? And what about Dr Allen’s belt, powered by the magic of electricity? Could it really help with rheumatism and lumbago, as its maker promised? Advertisements can reveal a great deal about an age. Gleaned from the pages of long forgotten publications, such as The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Australian Town and Country Journal and Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil, together with dozens of regional newspapers, they paint an intriguing picture of the world of our great-great-grandparents. With over 450 images, this book is one to pore over and enjoy: perhaps that electric hairbrush really did cure baldness and wouldn’t it be wonderful of those strange cannabis cigarettes did relieve asthma? Advertisements for condoms? It was just a matter of knowing what to look for. In some ways it is striking how little has changed. It comes as no surprise, for example, to discover that colonial women found it hard to resist a ‘bargain’, nor that they worried a great deal about their complexions and the ‘sweetness’ of their breath. Colonial men had their own concerns, prominent among them those old bugbears of advancing baldness and retreating virility. For those seeking to revive flagging passions there were always the ‘racy’ tales advertised each week in the illustrated papers (price one shilling, posted in a sealed envelope). Equally striking are the many differences in attitude and outlook revealed by old advertisements. It is curious, for example, that for most of the nineteenth century nobody—except perhaps the very young—seem to have been much concerned about body shape. It was only in the 1880s and ’90s that advertisements began to appear offering products designed to deal with ‘unsightly’ corpulence or to plump out that ‘underdeveloped’ bosom. It cannot have taken advertisers long to realise that they were onto a good thing exploiting those particular anxieties. Emporium uses collections of advertisements as starting points in assembling a series of self-contained ‘snapshots’. Introduced by a section on shopping, a succession of double-page spreads, each with its eyewitness accounts and contemporary descriptions, work to paint a lively and entertaining picture of everyday life in the Australian colonies. Although this is a book about advertising, it is really also all about the everyday lives of nineteenth-century Australians. The focus throughout is on the lives of so-called ordinary people—the working men, women and children whose struggles all too often merit little more than a footnote or two in many of our national histories. How did they go about getting married? How did they plan their families? How did they keep clean? How did they cook their food? Advertisements can answer all these questions. Humorous – quirky – fascinating – you will find this book compulsive! Edwin Barnard is an author and designer with an enduring interest in the everyday lives of nineteenth-century Australians. His previous books include Exiled for the National Library of Australia. Edwin lives in Avalon NSW.
Here is the history of knitting around the globe, examining styles, techniques, and particular styles countries and regions—including England, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Iceland, Japan, Australia, Canada, United States, Peru, Bolivia, and more. Highlighted are 20 profiles of historically significant knitters who are using particular techniques today—plus 20 patterns that exemplify knitting traditions from around the world.
The Loving Stitch is an engaging history of a subject never before explored but familiar to many New Zealanders. Heather Nicholson's knowledge of knitting and spinning is formidable but she also knows how to tell a good story and has a keen sense of humor. The Loving Stitch presents a chronological account of antipodean knitting, which is also a history of the domestic lives of women, of their resourcefulness, their talent and sociability. She follows the growth of pattern books, the role of knitting for troops in the two world wars, knitting in the Depression and the recent interest in art knitting. She also explores the different items produced by the skilled knitter, from jerseys and guernseys to counterpanes, socks and stockings, and a scarf that stretched right round Parliament Buildings. The book also includes material on spinning and on local wool mills, as well as general good advice drawn from the personal experience of hundreds of knitters and spinners. The Loving Stitch is impeccably researched, it is full of characters, memories and advice, and it is superbly illustrated.
Stella Miles Franklin became an international publishing sensation in 1901, with "My Brilliant Career," a portrayal of an ambitious and independent woman defying social expectations that still captivates readers. In a magisterial biography, Roe details Miles' extraordinary life.
Mary Walker Phillips nearly single-handedly brought 19th-century American counterpanes — bed coverings — to the attention of modern knitters. Expanded with dozens of brand-new charts, this revised edition features 46 counterpane patterns as well as 32 lace edgings and borders that Phillips discovered in museums, private collections, and magazines. "A terrific book." — Knitter's Magazine. Revised and expanded reprint of the Taunton Press, Newtown, Connecticut, 1989 edition.
Shows how Australian women have created their own sense of national and regional identity through their dress and in so doing puts a new slant on the history of Australian women's fashion in the twentieth century. This book argues that Australian women's fashions may be superficially derivative, but that there are patterns of dress.
