Summary

'Medieval' style pewter grey leather and metal stud dress with detachable long sleeves designed and made in Melbourne by Jenny Bannister in the early 1980s.

Dress is from Jenny's Queen of Hearts Collection.

Designs like this were part of Jenny's desire to be as sustainable and waste-free as possible, by utilising offcuts of leather from other garments.

It forms part of the Jenny Bannister archives which document her fashion design education and vocational life from the late 1960s until 2009.

Physical Description

Short shift-style dress with detachable long sleeves. Dress is constructed from irregular pieces of pewter grey leather sewn together in an overlapping pattern to resemble reptilian scales. The scales of leather are joined together with small grey metal studs. Holes have been cut into upper top front leather piece. Dress also features a jagged uneven hem that has been cut and left unfinished. A separate band of overlapping leather pieces secured with metal studs wraps around the high collar. Separate off-cut pieces of leather are stitched under the collar, designed to fall over the neck and shoulders. Dress is fastened at back of collar with press stud. Pair of long detachable sleeves are constructed from regular pieces of pewter grey leather sewn together in an overlapping pattern to resemble reptilian scales. The sleeves are attached to the dress with metal, open end zips at the shoulder seam, allowing for the dress to also be worn sleeveless. Each sleeve is fastened along the full length of the side seam with metal press studs. In this way the pair of sleeves can also be joined together with the press studs to form another dress. Armholes have been reinforced with topstitched leather binding. Dress also comes with two matching pewter grey leather accessory pieces; a thin leather strap that can be worn as a belt or as a decorative tie; and a roughly cut leather piece that can be worn as a garter, tie, belt, or headband. Black designer label is stitched to inside of dress at upper centre back.

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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