Māori MP Rawiri Waititi’s refusal to wear a necktie in the debating
chamber of New Zealand Parliament a couple of weeks ago made global headlines. Powerfully
describing the tie as a “colonial noose”, Mr Waititi argued that he should be permitted
to wear a hei tiki – a greenstone pendant –
instead as part of “Māori business attire”. Intense debate followed.
American and Australasian Photographic Company, Bank of New South Wales, Gulgong, 1870-1875. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Home and Away 39876.
This strip of fabric worn around the neck and tied at the throat draws diverse – and often passionately conflicting – responses. Some people love them, but many loathe them. Some consider them a symbol of power, a signal of group allegiance or a central part of a uniform (and uniformity), but these might each be viewed in a positive or negative light.
I find the current predictions for more casual dress as we
return to the office post lockdown fascinating, especially as we can trace historical
parallels. After WWI and WWII, periods
of global crisis and turmoil with massive disruptions to “normal life”, there
were calls for more casual clothing – just as there are now.
Sales of athleisure and
activewear have boomed during the pandemic as we’ve embraced hoodies,
tracksuits, leggings and slippers for working at home. Commentators and experts
have suggested that both men and women might continue this styling by wearing more
relaxed clothing including looser fit tailoring and lighter or stretch fabrics
when lockdowns lift.
Laurie Shea, ‘Dress Reform’, 1947. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy ACP Magazine Limited, ON 388/Box 009/Item 111.
I trace the similarities between now and the calls for men’s “dress reform” in the first half of the twentieth century in The Conversation. I’ve also enjoyed speaking about them on the radio, which you can listen to here:
Straight leg, skinny, boot or flared. A sharply-pressed
rich indigo, or faded to the palest blue and torn at the knee. We wear our
denim jeans in many different ways, in styles that go in and out of fashion.
But for many years, denim jeans were simple workwear, stiff and sturdy, made more durable by the rivets reinforcing the pockets and fly. Those made by Levi Strauss – considered by many to be the original denim jeans – were designed for and sold to America’s manual workers.
Russell Lee, ‘Detail of farmer’s blue jeans, boots and spurs, Pie Town, New Mexico’, 1940, LC-USF33- 012733-M2, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington.
Many histories tracing their origins and meteoric rise have been written, emphasising that while they might seem almost too commonplace to consider significant, they are instead deeply important to how we live. Anthropologist Daniel Miller and sociologist Sophie Woodward’s work on the Global Denim Project reveals not just the global reach of denim jeans, nor the huge number of people – from children to the elderly – wearing them at any one moment, but why this is the case and how it came to be.
And in
Australia? Tailor and Men’s Wear’s ‘Style Spy’ encouraged menswear retailers
to stock cowboy style denim trousers in 1950 for young men taking up the square-dancing
craze.
‘… the young bloods of the community’ would find these ‘cow-boy type trousers in blue denim’ appealing. ‘As Seen By Our Style Spy… Square Dancing’, Tailor and Men’s Wear, October 1950, 19.
The
popular Man magazine explained for its readers in 1954 that a new type
of leisure pant was needed for around the home, for picnics, in the workshop
and the garden. Man described and illustrated the ‘latest’ idea: pants
made from denim but ‘not cut to look like overalls’. Even better, they were ‘tough
and wear well, wash and remain smart for the picnic as for the lawn-mowing that
comes before it’.
The
Australian manufacturer Amco started making its jeans in the 1950s, and they
became the denim jeans of choice by the ‘70s. The company’s branding was catchy:
‘Amco. The name of everyone’s hips’. In
1960, Amco advertising stressed their jeans’ style, design and ‘long, long
life’. By the middle of the decade, this had shifted to emphasise their snug
fit and fast fading, so popular that ‘fellows everywhere go for the slim
fitting hip clinging Amco jeans’.
‘The new roles of denim for casuals brings about this informal garment which has sports uses outside the home workshop, Man magazine explained. ‘Your Clothes: Head to Toe’, Man, April 1954, 62.
Later that decade, the new Amco Baggy’s were introduced ‘for the man who loves easy action, trim looks and room for comfort’, before Amco Flares, ‘wide at the bottom for freedom and comfort’, were designed. Ever changing, in 1984 customers found a tempting range of ‘up to 20 different styles of Amcos to choose from … Amco Rider, Amco Tabs, super-sophisticated Amco Bagarts, and much, much, more’.
It
didn’t hurt their popularity that the jeans manufacturer sponsored the Rugby
League Championship from 1974 to 1979, with teams playing for the Amco Cup and
the player of the week awarded a pair of Amco jeans. In the final year of rugby
league sponsorship, the company was sold to the US-owned Blue Bell, makers of
Wrangler jeans, for a massive $12.95 million.
The
story of Amco is also one of the rise of off-shore production, coming during a
period when Australian clothing manufacturers began to set up overseas
factories to take advantage of cheaper labour and costs. Amco established their
factory in the Philippines in 1974, and others went to countries including
Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan – though into the ‘80s local production still
outweighed imported jeans.
Harry Poulsen, ‘Young woman modelling a pair of denim jeans and a checked shirt’, 1952, negative number: 181586, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
But it was the uptake of jeans by teenagers and young adults that had everyone talking. A deliberately-stuffy reflection on ‘Jeanagers’ from Batman (the remarkable social commentator Keith Dunstan) in The Bulletin explained in 1972:
Jeans are the uniform, the absolute badge of a generation and they serve to doubly emphasise the generation gap. Don’t think I haven’t tried to wear them. But it doesn’t work. You can’t get anything into those miserable pockets and there is the terrible discomfort of the way they hang two inches below the navel.
A decade later, statistics for 1981-82
revealed more than 12 million men’s and boys’ jeans had been locally made or
imported into Australia – more than double the number made for women and girls
which totalled 4.4 million.
Next
time you head out, take notice of how many people are in jeans – it’s perhaps
more than you think.
References
Batman
[Keith Dunstan], ‘Lifestyle: The Jeanagers’, The Bulletin, 19 February 1972, 39-41.
Glennys
Bell, ‘Fashion: Why Jeans Keep Bouncing Back’, The Bulletin, 12 June 1984, 78-80.
‘Business
and Economics: Amco Holdings announces a 26.4pc lift in profit’, Canberra Times, 27 September 1977, 17.
‘Clothing
makers move to Asia’, Canberra Times,
8 February 1974, 6.
Ian
Heads, The Night the Music Died
(Concord: Stoke Hill Press, 2014).
Daniel
Miller, ‘Anthropology in Blue Jeans’, American
Ethnologist 37:3 (August 2010): 415-428.
Daniel
Miller and Sophie Woodward (eds), Global
Denim (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2011).
Daniel
Miller and Sophie Woodward, Blue Jeans:
The Art of the Ordinary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012).
Those who exercise at dawn or dusk will almost certainly
wear sportwear with reflective strips – at the ankle or calf, perhaps down the
back or across the wrists. So commonplace are reflective trims that you might
not be aware of them at all.
But in December 1947, Australia’s Tailor and Men’s Wear magazine reported with excitement of a new
reflective material developed in North America. ‘You Can See It At Night!’, the
article’s title exclaimed of the revolutionary cloth which contained ‘millions
of tiny glass spheres which reflect back to the sources of light, such as the
headlights of an automobile’.
The magazine explained how it was durable and waterproof. It
could be washed or dry cleaned. The glass spheres were so small that they could
not be pried from the cloth and nor could they be crushed. No difficulties had
been reported with sewing the cloth, for example, with needles breaking.
To help its readers better visualise the effect, Tailor and Men’s Wear printed two
photographs of a young man wearing a fashionable zip-front sport jacket. In the
first he stands with a hand in one pocket. In the second photograph, plunged
into darkness, only the reflective strips across the shoulders and at the
pockets are visible.
A sports jacket with reflective strips illustrating the article ‘You Can See It At Night!’, Tailor and Men’s Wear, December 1947, 15.
The reflective fabric, Scotchlite, was produced by Minnesota
Mining and Manufacturing Company – the company now know as 3M (you might be
familiar with their Post-It notes).
By 1949, Australian newspapers noted how Scotchlite was
increasingly used in America for a range of applications: from street signs and
hoardings, to policemen’s gloves and pedestrians’ raincoats. ‘This Material
Almost Defeats Darkness’, ran one headline. Another less dramatic and more
pragmatic noted ‘American Idea is Practical’. A third headline, ‘Glow at Night
Like Fireflies’, painted a vivid picture of just how visible a person could be
– even on the darkest night – with Scotchlite cloth trims.
Whatever the headline, there were clear applications for the
fabric in Australia, particularly for workplace safety. Initially demonstrated
for police use, for highway departments, railways and tramways, such reflective
fabric was a forerunner to the high-visibility workwear now essential in many
Australian industries.
‘Police Were Impressed’, Advertiser (Adelaide), 22 July 1954, 3.
References
‘Glow at Night Like Fireflies’, News (Adelaide), 30 July 1949, 9.
‘He Wants to See Police “Lit Up”’, News (Adelaide), 20 July 1954, 15.
Last week, my ‘Friday essay: the singlet — a short history of an Australian icon’ was published by The Conversation. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of being interviewed by a number of radio stations around Australia: from Perth and South West WA, to Adelaide and Melbourne, to Sydney and Central West NSW. One of the interesting questions that has come up is why I began researching the singlet. Surely there’s nothing much to say about such a humble item of clothing?
Though they’re
simple in form, singlets can in fact tell us a lot about Australia and Australians,
and about identity, class, masculinity and sexuality via their
changing place in our wardrobes. Long associated with working-class masculinity, singlets have hugged
the hard, toned torsos of generations of shearers, timber cutters, construction
workers and others, emphasising their chests and revealing powerful biceps and
shoulders.
W. J. Buller, ‘Road Construction of the Kuranda-Smithfield Road’, c. 1930, State Library of Queensland, 6670.
Building on this ready evocation of masculinity, in the 1970s they
were adopted by pub rock musicians and, paired with skin-tight jeans in a look
that sweep Sydney’s Oxford Street, by gay men – to very different ends.
They’ve
clad bodies hard and toned, such as athletes in their moments of victory, just
as they been worn by diggers on the goldfields and by our soldiers to war.
‘Six Male Athletes in a Row After the Cross Country Competition, New South Wales’, 21 August 1932, National Library of Australia, nla.obj-160345159.
But there is more still to singlets: visual sources cement their popularity as underwear and outwear, dress and fashion, from infancy to old age; material sources shed light on the intimate, daily practices of how they have been worn. (I’ve written more about this in ‘Rethinking Men’s Dress through Material Sources: The Case Study of a Singlet’ for Australian Historical Studies.)
‘Beach Gathering’, c. 1930, State Library of South Australia, PRG 691/19/4.
You can
listen to some of these interviews on the singlet at:
Virtuoso, innovator, eccentric – Percy Grainger has been
called many things. A complex man who was best known as a pianist and composer,
he is of interest to us for his collecting. Alongside the material he gathered relating
to the best composers and folk music from around the world, he also kept a huge
number of his clothes. They now form part of the collection of the Grainger Museum, located at the
University of Melbourne, and comprise the largest single grouping of one man’s
clothing in an Australian museum.
There are formal suits he wore while performing: black wool
tails and trousers finely-made by New York tailors M. B. Guildford of Fifth
Avenue. Paired with stiff-fronted dress shirts and bow ties, also in the
collection, Grainger must have cut a dashing figure – every part the charismatic
star that he was.
But there’s also an impressive range of everyday clothes
that he wore around the home, on the street or when travelling: work shirts and
checked suits, white cotton trousers and towelling cloth outfits (these deserve
a post of their own!). Plus, there’s underwear and sleepwear, swimsuits,
collars, hats and shoes. Together, they form an astounding sartorial picture of
one man.
Grainger kept his clothes as they frayed at the cuffs, as
lining tore, or as they stained with sweat or blood. Some are heavily repaired with
darns, mends and patches. Others are faded from the sun and constant wear. Others
still show signs of being adapted to suit Grainger’s preferences: many of his
sleeves are shortened, for example, by a hand-stitched tuck above the elbow.
Intriguingly, some are accompanied by Grainger’s hand-written notes, explaining when and where he wore his clothes, or what they meant to him. With a grey wool summer suit Grainger’s label reads:
“No doubt chosen by mother (maybe PG chosing [sic] also). After mother’s death I was so keen to match this suit but could get no stuff (at Guildford) in 1923. Have worn this suit roughing it at home (White Plains) sleeping in it in ‘day coaches’ on trains etc.”
‘Underpants worn by Percy Grainger’ [detail], made by Pepperell with hand-stitched adjustments by Percy Grainger, 01.3338b, Grainger Museum Collection, University of Melbourne. Courtesy Grainger Museum.
It seems nothing was too small to comment on. With two pairs of white cotton underpants Grainger noted:
“Samples of PG’s sewing Kensington, Adelaide, S.A. Jan 1935. 2 underpants lengthened and widened by PG (a) his handiwork (b) the same bettered by maid who did washing at Globe Hotel Kensington.”
Grainger has hand-stitched additional fabric to the hem so that the legs extend further down the thigh – with one leg now longer than the other – and at the side seams to make them a looser, fuller fit.
Grainger began collecting for his museum early, focusing on
manuscripts, musical sketches, letters, articles, and other documents that
would expose his Australian visitors to the best composers and folk music from
around the world. You can read his aims here.
His collection was also deeply intimate and autobiographical, and Grainger
always intended that his clothing be displayed – in fact, he had a life-size wood
and papier-mâché mannequin of himself made for that very purpose.
A visit to the Grainger Museum today reveals that his intent remains central to the exhibitions. On my visit, his colourful towelling clothes and army uniform were on display. I was eager to read in the exhibition text Grainger’s fascinating resolve:
“It would seem to me a good procedure if the visitor could get an impression of the taste & habits of the composer from looking at his clothes DISPLAYED ON SOME VAGUELY LIKE FIGURE & look at the photo alongside for likeness details.”
I couldn’t agree more.
‘Clothing and Character display with Percy and Ella Grainger’s towelling clothes’, Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne. Courtesy Grainger Museum.
Thanks to curator Heather Gaunt for facilitating access to
the collection and sharing her insights.
References
‘Clothing and Character’ exhibition text, Grainger Museum,
University of Melbourne.
Bryony Dawkes, ‘’Percy Grainger, Towelling Costume’, in Chris
McAuliffe and Peter Yule (eds), Treasures:
Highlights of the Cultural Collections of the University of Melbourne
(Carlton: Miegunyah Press, 2003), 144.
Kay Dreyfus, ‘Grainger, George Percy (1882–1961)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography,
National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/grainger-george-percy-6448/text11037, published
first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 8 August 2019.
Kay Dreyfus (ed), The
Farthest North of Humanness: Letters of Percy Grainger 1901-14 (South
Melbourne: Macmillan, 1985).
Robert Simon, Percy
Grainger: The Pictorial Biography (New York: Whitston Publishing Company,
1983).
Robyn Healy, Male Order: Addressing Menswear (Parkville:
Grainger Museum, 1999).
Sharon Peoples, ‘Dress, Moral Reform and Masculinity in
Australia’, Grainger Studies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal 1 (2011): 115-135.
Thomas C. Slattery, Percy
Grainger: The Inveterate Innovator (Evanston: The Instumentalist Co.,
1974).
Wilfrid Mellers, Percy
Grainger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
In 1950, photographer Wolfgang Sievers
travelled to Bruck Mills in the Victorian town of Wangaratta. The mills
produced rayon, a fabric likened to silk that was in fact made from chemically
treated cellulose. Sievers took a series of black and white photographs of the
mills’ workers in action. His photographs, dramatically lit with striking
industrial lines, echo the photography for which he became best known.
Wolfgang Sievers (photographer), Bruck Mills, Wangaratta, Vic., producing rayon fabric, photographs: gelatin silver; 17 x 25 cm approx., State Library Victoria, H2003.100/22.
Executives
from Montreal-based Bruck Silk Mills had travelled to Australia in 1945 to
consider where they would establish a new rayon weaving mill. They intended
that Canadian rayon experts would come to Australia to train a local workforce,
initially 500 strong, importing the necessary machinery and equipment.
Newcastle was flagged as a potential site, though when the announcement was
made by John Dedman (who features in my earlier posts), Minister for Post-War
Reconstruction, in March 1946 it was the Government-owned Wangaratta aluminium
rolling mills that had been selected for rayon production.
This was
exciting news for the town’s residents. It promised to increase employment and
attract new workers. Victoria’s Premier, John Cain (senior – not to be confused
with his son of the same name, who served as premier between 1982 and 1990),
pledged state government co-operation, noting that 250 new houses would be
needed. Public interest was significant, but as Australia had imported rayon before
the war there seemed some uncertainty about what it actually was.
Melbourne’s Argus newspaper aimed to alleviate any confusion, explaining it in
simple terms as:
a synthetic yarn made from wood pulp chemically treated and extruded through fine holes or nozzles. It is a continuous fibre the size or denier of which can be determined by the size of the fine holes through which it is extruded.
Wolfgang Sievers (photographer), Bruck Mills, Wangaratta, Vic., producing rayon fabric, photographs: gelatin silver; 17 x 25 cm approx., State Library Victoria, H2003.100/22.
Rayon, also known as artificial silk, art
silk or imitation silk, had been patented in France in 1885, but its
manufacture flourished during and after First World War and in the Second World
War when silk supplies were limited – Australia’s major supplier was Japan.
Australia’s
large rayon imports were second only to the amount of cotton and linen being
imported into the country in 1939, so the post-war establishment of an
Australian mill was especially welcome. So too was the potential for the use of
rayon in clothing. It could be dyed vivid colours and had good draping
qualities. On a more practical level it was soft but durable, with a long life.
As technology improved, it could be made cheaply.
Rayon was closely linked to women’s fashions, but not exclusively. In the early 1950s, the popular Australian magazine Man alerted its readers to a new trend for casual printed shirts for weekend wear. Made from rayon, the magazine explained how African, Hawaiian and Calypso motifs were popular. Rayon gaberdine blends were stylish, too, with the benefits of being ‘fadeless, launder[ing] like new, and will last quite a long time.’
Rayon could also be combined with woollen yarn, making a high-quality fabric used for men’s suits. Following the trend in America, Man explained in 1952 how:
The new rayon materials combine the best features of suiting: durable, non-shiny, fray-resisting, they offer warmth, smoothness and light weigh, all in the one package. They hold their shape and creases, too.
Six years after Sievers captured rayon production at the mills, he photographed the newly opened Bruck Mills showroom at 118 Flinders Lane, in the heart of Melbourne’s ragtrade. His photographs document the showroom’s modern design and sharp lines, and its reference back to the Wangaratta mills: an image of spools of thread runs dramatically from floor to ceiling across the length of the back wall.
References
‘Business
Men Back with Plans for New Industries’, Sun
(Sydney), 27 October 1945, 2.
‘Country
Industry Needs More Houses’, Argus
(Melbourne), 15 March 1946, 14.
‘Imports’,
The Textile Journal of Australia, 15
April 1939, 91.
Donald Coleman, ‘Man-Made Fibres
Before 1945’, The Cambridge History of Western Textiles Vol. 2,
ed. David Jenkins, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, 933-947.
‘Newcastle
May Get New Textile Mills’, Newcastle Sun,
27 October 1945, 2.
‘Rayon
Factory for Victoria’, Sun (Sydney),
13 March 1946, 3.
‘Rayon—Its
Source, Properties, and Manufacture’, Argus
(Melbourne), 28 March 1946, 9.
Jane
Schneider, ‘In and Out of Polyester: Desire, Disdain and Global Fibre
Competitions’, Anthropology Today 10,
no. 4 (August 1994): 2-10.
Kassia
St Clair, ‘Workers in the Factory: Rayon’s Dark Past’, in The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History, John Murray, London,
2018, 201-221.
‘Wangaratta
Factory for Bruck’, Argus
(Melbourne), 14 March 1946, 12.
‘Why Not
Make Rayon?’, The Textile Journal of
Australia, 15 July 1939, 210.
Clothes are so readily available today – purchased
cheaply through chain stores (though recent exposure of labour conditions and
wages paid might make us think twice), at high-end designer boutiques, in
op-shops or online – that it can be hard to imagine such short supplies that
they need to be rationed. But in Australia, pressing shortages resulted in
civilian clothes rationing spanning a six-year period between 1942 and 1948. Alongside
it, a black market loomed.
Dwindling
supplies of cloth and clothing were apparent in 1941. The subsequent rationing
of clothing was put in place from May 1942, after which a coupon system was
introduced to manage scarcity and ensure equitable distribution. But some still
longed for garments now considered a luxury. Others were unwilling to wait
months to purchase the clothing which was available. A black market in
clothing, and the uncut cloth to make it, began to flourish Australia wide.
In 1943, the Australian Government published a leaflet titled The Black Market is the Traitor’s Market. It sent a clear message: black marketing was ‘one of the most insidious crimes that can be committed against a nation at war’ and buying black market goods not only injured the war effort but was an act of betrayal.
Commonwealth Rationing Commission, The Black Market is the Traitor’s Market: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-250724066
Clothing
materials were stolen after leaving mills, in transit from wharfs or train
stations, or in warehouses where they were stored prior to distribution. Those
caught were arrested and charged. For
the right price, clothing was sold without the required coupons – though this
price was often severely inflated. Material used to make men’s suits were
eagerly sought and made up by back-room tailors or sold by door-to-door agents.
But
buying from a seller going house to house posed its own problems: those who
purchased black-market goods were liable for a fine or gaol time. And for
traders, the retribution was swift: by mid-1945 more than 760 prosecutions were
recorded.
Normally-sensible
tailors fell foul of black-market temptations, as did suburban housewives
missing a range of goods and the freedom of choice. Yet the leaflet was clear:
‘The BUYER of black market goods is just as guilty as the SELLER’, and it
roused Australians to ‘STRANGLE BLACK MARKETS.’
References
‘Big Black Market “Ring” Gets Huge Rake-Off from Clothing’, Sun, 31 May 1945, 3.
‘Blackmarket in Clothing’, Morning Bulletin, 6 June 1945, 6.
‘Brisbane’s Black-Market’, Smith’s Weekly, 22 December 1945, 1.
‘Huge Queensland Black Market in Suitings’, Daily Mercury, 28 May 1947, 1.
Minister for Trade and Customs and the Commonwealth Rationing Commission, The Black Market is the Traitor’s Market (Adelaide: K. M. Stevenson, Government Printer, 1943), 1.
‘Theft of Clothing Materials: Believed Intended for Black Market’, Advocate, 30 May 1946, 3.
Recently I wrote about World War II clothes styling regulations
and their impact on men’s suits. As they were ‘streamlined for victory’, suits
were stripped of elements that in wartime became superfluous.
The ‘Victory Suit’ – so called because the savings made in fabric and other supplies could be allocated to the nation’s war effort – was far from universally popular. Anticipating this, John Dedman, Minister for War Organisation of Industry, spruiked the first victory suit in a short film for the Australian public.
He outlined how fashionable double-breasted jackets used too much
fabric when single-breasted would do. Buttons and buttonholes on sleeves and
turned-up trouser cuffs might look stylish, but wasted buttons and thread that
could be used for functional purposes elsewhere. Likewise, trims and top-stitching
created a tailored finish but could be done without.
‘National Security (General) Regulations: Controlling the Clothing (Male Outerwear) Order’, Commonwealth of Australia Gazelle, no. 209, 31 July 1942, p. 1838.
I watched the film many times with an eye trained on these
differences – and each was there on the suit he modelled – but knew that examining
a surviving suit might tell me more. But had any been acquired by museums during
or after the war, or in the decades to follow?
I suspected this was unlikely either because they had been worn
out or unceremoniously disposed of: perhaps as they looked embarrassingly dowdy
when clothes styling regulations again lifted, or were an unwelcome reminder of
civilian sacrifice during the war years.
The Australian War Memorial’s collection search, however, displayed
a tantalisingly brief record:
‘Victory suit’ or ‘Dedman’ economy suit, introduced by Mr Dedman, Minister of War Organisation of Industry during the 1939-1945 war. The suit was designed to reduce wastage.
Intrigued, I arranged a visit. The dark grey suit with its red and
white pinstripes brought out of the collection store looked surprisingly
familiar. I reasoned this was as it followed Dedman’s regulations outlined in
the ‘Control of Clothing (Male Outerwear) Order’ in July 1942 to the letter.
The victory suit was made by Louis & Charles Noble, Melbourne. Victory Suit jacket, Australian War Memorial Collection, REL/00039.001.
But perhaps more surprising was that for all the encouragement over
the war years to save fabric – or the often-repeated appeal to ‘make do and
mend’ – the suit showed very few signs of wear. Why would a victory suit be
made, and the one in front of me was beautifully tailored and hand finished, if
not to be worn?
The trousers were made to be worn with braces and could be tightened at the waist with a buckle. Victory Suit trousers, Australian War Memorial Collection, REL/00039.002.
The acquisition documentation provided answers to my questions. This victory suit was the samesuit worn by Dedman in his short black and white film to promote the new style – the one in which I had watched him enter his office, sit behind his desk, and gesture to its various features.
It was, in fact, the first sample made according to the new
clothes styling restrictions, manufactured for the Department of the War
Organisation of Industry to demonstrate the new look that suits would take for
the press.
In 1943, the Department contacted the Australian War Memorial to
see if the suit might be of historical interest. I, for one, am glad they recognised
its significance. The result is that Australia’s first victory suit has a safe,
permanent home where researchers like me can see how it was made and consider
its importance to Australia’s everyday dress across the twentieth century.
An excellent description of John Dedman’s victory suit, and number of photographs, are now available on the Australian War Memorial’s website.
My thanks to curator Jane Peek at the Australian War Memorial for
so kindly facilitating my visit and for discussing John Dedman’s fascinating suit.
Australian War Memorial, ‘Aust. “Victory Suit” donated by Dept. of
War Organisation of Industry’, File No. 55/3/45/4.
John J. Dedman, ‘National Security (General) Regulations: Control of Clothing (Male Outerwear) Order’, Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, no. 209, 31 July 1942, p. 1838.
The National Films Council of The Department of Information presents A War Organisation of Industry Production, John Dedman in ‘Victory Suit’, 35mm black and white film, directed by Ralph Smart, commentary by Harry Dearth, Australian War Memorial Collection, F01641: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C189026.
In July 1942, John Dedman, Minister for War Organisation of
Industry, appeared at his Sydney office in Australia’s first ‘Victory
Suit’. Cloth and clothing shortages had become a serious wartime reality, and
clothes rationing using a coupon system had been introduced the month before.
‘Victory’ Suit [with Mr Dedman at left], Lithgow Mercury, 27 July 1942, 4: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article220767332
Mr Dedman was filmed, somewhat stiffly, modelling his
Victory Suit in a short black and white film presented by the War Organisation of
Industry (a digitised version of this film can be viewed on the Australian War Memorial’s
website). While Mr Dedman’s suit looked ‘just like any other’ there were,
in fact, striking differences. Pointing to his suit, Dedman listed where fabric
could be saved:
No vest. No trouser turn ups. No buttons on sleeves. That may seem a trivial change, but each of the old-fashioned cuff button holes uses up one extra yard of thread. That means a saving of eight yards on every suit. And no more double-breasted suits will be made.
This was civilian austerity dressing that stripped
non-essentials from men’s clothing so that much-needed materials and labour
could be directed into the war effort. Style restrictions extended to men’s
overcoats, sports jackets, trousers and knitted outwear; women’s and children’s
clothing was also ‘streamlined for victory’.
How did the men of Australia respond? Initially, with
concern. Removing the waistcoat, in effect reducing the commonly-worn three-piece
suit to two pieces, was an unwelcome development. Would men – particularly
those in southern states – have a buy a pull-over for warmth, and thereby use
their coupons for additional garments, they wondered? And where would they hang
their watch-chains? Tailors weighed in to the debate, explaining that removing
waistcoats would save little fabric as many bolts of material had already been
cut to ‘suit lengths’: the required amount of fabric needed to make a three-piece
suit.
Newspapers reported with relish when Mr Dedman appeared in
September 1942 wearing a waistcoat – seemingly against his own regulations –
although he quickly pointed out that it was from another, older suit and not
newly made.
Following months of protest, waistcoats were added to the
Victory Suit in December – though the Government maintained this was the result
of better stocks of material rather than admitting to public pressure.
References
Commonwealth of Australia, ‘National Security (General)
Regulation: Control of Clothing (Male Outerwear) Order, No. 209’, Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 31
July 1942.
‘“Deadman Wore Waistcoat With Victory Suit!”’, Tweed Daily, 11 September 1942, 1.
The National Films Council of The Department of Information
presents A War Organisation of Industry Production, John Dedman in ‘Victory
Suit’, 35mm black and white film, directed by Ralph Smart, commentary by Harry Dearth,
Australian War Memorial Collection, F01641: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C189026.
‘Plea for Waistcoats: Making up of Suit Lengths Already in
Stock’, Mercury, 31 July 1942, 5.
‘“Victory Suit”: Some Tailors Critical’, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 July 1942, 4.
‘Victory Suit With Old Waistcoat’, Barrier Miner, 14 September 1942, 3.
‘Waistcoat Ban Opposed’, Evening Advocate, 7 August 1942, 1.