Photography, fashion, glamour

by RICHARD JONES

AS a teenager in the late 1950s I vividly remember my forays into was fondly known as the "Paris End" of Melbourne's Collins Street.

For a boy from the provinces - well, you have to realise back then Geelong was referred to as Sleepy Hollow - Collins Street was the epitome of style and culture.

Now, the National Gallery of Victoria's touring exhibition of 90 photographs titled The Paris End: Photography, Fashion and Glamour has been hung at the Bendigo Art Gallery.

For the first half of last century, Collins Street's top end was the home of artists, performers, writer and musicians and the exhibition brings this vibrancy to life.

Works from photographers such as Athol Shmith, Helmut Newton, Henry Talbot, Ruth Hollick, May and Mina Moore and Wolfgang Sievers have been hung in the exhibition.

These people all had studios at the Paris End precinct in the 50s and apart from their fashion photography some of them had shots published in the newspapers of the day.

The name Shmith is well known to anyone who has pursued a career in journalism, for instance. His celebrity shots often accompanied articles in Melbourne newspapers of the 1950s and 1960s.

In the current exhibition there's an entire wall of Shmith's fashion shots including a 1949 one of top model Patricia Tuckwell. Shmith was intent on illustrating the French fashion so beloved by post-World War 2 Melbournians.

Seated and with her left leg extended, a languid Tuckwell is pictured wearing a Christian Dior gown. Of course, she's wearing gloves - a must fashion accessory of the 1940s and 1950s.

On to Helmut Newton's selection and he has the well-known Maggie Tabberer leaning on a bridge near Flinders Lane. There's a scruffy Yarra River bank over Tabberer's left shoulder and behind her.

Newton brilliantly contrasts the cool fashion depicted by Tabberer and her grotty surroundings with three ordinary looking river craft in the shot as well.

Two of the enduring images for me from this 2007 collection are the Alice Mills photographs of the Symes daughters, Joan Margaret and Hilaire. They were daughters of Geoffrey Syme, editor and co-owner of the Melbourne Age in the early 20th century.

Both were coloured shots, techniques used before the advent of colour photography.

With the later shot, dated 1918, Mills used layers of translucent pigment to create the illusion of natural colour. Considering Joan Margaret was dressed in a leopard skin garment this technique would have taken Mills quite some time. For the 1910 picture of Hilaire the photographer used watercolours to provide extra effect.

There's also a selection of photographs used in advertisements of the era. Some of them include Brasso and Wrigley's Juicy Fruit (Jack Cato), Coles and Garrard spectacles, Holden car parts and women's nylon stockings (E.G. Adamson), men's ties (Wofgang Sievers) and Kiwi boot polish (Athol Shmith).

The Paris End is on display until close to the end of this month at the Bendigo Art Gallery. There is no entry charge for patrons.

15 June 2007

australianrules.com.au

paris photo

Model Janet Dawson pictured at the Eastern Markets, Melbourne, 1957. (Gelatin silver photograph. Photographer: Bruno Benini).

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