clothing

Fashion is reversible. Ones Europeans tried to dress Aboriginal people, today Aboriginal traditional elements are wining the fashion look of Europeans.

Indigenous Australians have influenced modern Australian dress since first contact. From possum skin cloaks and booka kangaroo capes to shell necklaces in Tasmania, Europeans have been fascinated with Indigenous materials, skills and aesthetics. They have stolen, purchased, borrowed and worn them for more than 200 years. In turn, Indigenous Australians have at times enjoyed wearing soldiers’ red jackets as battle spoils and possibly mocked the Europeans by wearing their top hats cockily in the early streets of Sydney. Later, as First Australians were dispossessed from their lands and herded into reserves and missions, clothing was imposed on them, ranging from shapeless “mother Hubbard” dresses for women to shabby but respectable woolen two-piece suits for men. Traditional dress practices, along with the ceremony, language and music-making, were often banned by the colonisers. Missionaries often taught western-style leatherwork to men and needlecraft to women – yet powerful hybrids of the self-determined dress also emerged, expressing subversive gestures and quiet resistance. In the mid 20th century, missionary nuns in Far North Australia began to allow Indigenous women to craft their own textiles. Brightly coloured fabrics were the result, with unusual combinations of motifs. For some time, Indigenous Australian art was often seen as the future of a distinctively Australian design, as evident in the 1970s energy of Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson, but on the whole, Indigenous design was not recognised in its own right. This is now changing - Indigenous fashion design today is being shaped by First Nations people at every level. Source: theconversation.com/how-indigenous-fashion-designers-are-...

Women were involved with horse racing in Australia by the 1890s. Since then, they have owned horses, trained horses, gambled on horses and attended the races. Their participation in the sport was hampered because of a lack of facilities and participation rates were not as high as other sports. In 1940, a study of 314 women in New Zealand and Australia was done. Most of the women in the study were middle class, conservative, Protestant and white. The study found that 183 participated in sport. The third most popular sport that these women participated in was horse riding, with 38 having played the sport.[9] The ninth most popular sport that these women participated in was horse racing, with 3 having played the sport. The sport was tied with billiards, chess, fishing, field hockey, croquet, squash, table tennis and shooting. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_horse_racing_in_Australia

To provide a name to a face, this is Ellen Cox pictured in May 1946 for the Edmonton Bulletin. The seamstress, who lived at 10542 133rd Street, is engaged in making a pair of white shorts for the Dutch Marine Corps.

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