Summary

Necklace made for Jenny Bannister by Fitzroy jeweller William Llewellyn Griffiths for the opening of the 2007 Melbourne Fashion Festival at Government House. She wore it as a symbol of her anger, while informally meeting with politicians to discuss the demise of Australian manufacture and design.

The neckalce was also worn by Jenny during the 2007 Fashion Show episode of the Australian television game show Family Feud, hosted by Bert Newton on Network Ten. It was again worn during a 2009 ABC television 7.30 Report interview about the closing of her business, which was partly due to the inability to have her clothing manufactured in Australia.

It is part of the archives of Jenny Bannister, documenting her fashion design educational and vocational life, from the late 1960s until 2009.

Physical Description

Metal necklace with the words 'MADE IN AUSTRALIA' and six rectangular razor blades studded with diamantes, three on either side, suspended from a silver chain with clasp fastening.

Significance

The Jenny Bannister archive is of national significance, and is arguably the most important fashion design, manufacture and retailing archive still in existence. It documents the career of one of Australia's most significant designers and business women, who kept a thriving company going for almost 40 years, long after her contemporaries had retired or gone bankrupt.

No other collection documents this significant period in Australian fashion and clothing manufacturing so completely and succinctly; from the rise of an independent fashion industry in the 1960s and 70s, complimented by a strong local manufacturing sector, to the moving offshore of most of the manufacture as costs rosed to the eventual bankruptcy and closure of many local labels due to an increased overseas retail presence and rise of online consumerism.

Its importance was recognised by the National Library of Australia, who collected the bulk of her business and manufacture archival material, including 100 of patterns. It was only the second such collection to enter the institution, after that of prominent Sydney designer Linda Jackson.

She was the master of creativity and diversity, able to capture numerous markets, producing the most outlandish and artistic garments as well as highly commercial clothing. as renowned fashion historian and academic Professor Robyn Healy wrote 'Art Clothes, body sculpture, craft, theatrical costume, party clothes or serious fashion - Jenny Bannister's work transcends categorization. Like a New Age traveller, she explores the extraordinary, the primitive and the futuristic, to create garments for for kings, the Mardi Gras of the hip crowd'.

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