firstnation

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-...

King Tommy of the Gubbi Gubbi People, Noosa, 1890s. He was known as the King of Noosa, Weyba, Gootharaba (Cootharaba), and Tumburrawa. Source: www.facebook.com/Lost.Brisbane/photos/king-tommy-of-the-g...

Under various Acts of Parliament, Aboriginal women were sent to privately owned properties to be utilised as ‘domestic servants’ through a system of forced indentured labour, which continued until the 1970’s. This social history research reveals that the practice of removing Aboriginal women from their families at the age of 12 or 13 and to white families was more common practice than not. These women were often: not paid, worked up to 15 hour days, were not allowed leave, and were subjected to many forms of abuse. This hidden Aboriginal Australian women’s history needs to be revealed to better understand the experiences and depth of misappropriation of Aboriginal women as domestic workers. In doing so, it also reveals a more accurate reflection of women’s work in Australia. Source: Indigenous Australian women and work : an historical context Best, Odette & Fredericks, Bronwyn (2013) Indigenous Australian women and work : an historical context. In The Oxford Women's Leadership Symposium eprints.qut.edu.au/71360/