Farewell to an old friend–Rest In Peace Maureen

When casting my eye over the Tributes page in The Age today, I was shocked to discover a familiar name listed, and ascertained from the names of the attributers that it was indeed my old and dear friend Maureen.

I post haste rang the persons who had placed the tribute to find out what had happened. Maureen had died last Friday morning of lung cancer, after being diagnosed with the condition in February this year.

This is a real shock as I had no inkling that she was ill. In fact the last time I saw her in early January  she was bragging about how well she felt.  And even though she always appeared cadaverous –tall,  pale and thin – she mostly had enjoyed the best of health and was a vegetarian by choice. She would have turned 62 on the 20th May.

I have known Maureen for over 40 years, first meeting her when she moved into the Parkville mansion, Mt Ievers, where I was living in the late 1960s/early 1970s . When Mt Ievers was sold to developers Maureen and I shared a house in Carlton for several years, and also both worked at Space Age Books in the 1970s.  We remained good friends through all the decades since, though didn’t see each other much, until fairly recently where we went on several outings to galleries. I hadn’t seen her since our trip to Bendigo for the Modern Love Exhibition in January, so I now bitterly regret that I had not got in touch with her over the last few months.

Maureen was fiercely independent so it would not be like to her to ring and complain about her health. She had long been looking for a job, so I assumed that she had got one and was too busy to make contact.

As I have no photos of her, I have used an Erte image to illustrate this post, as Erte’s fashion illustrations will always remind me of Maureen. She always dressed very stylishly, in beautifully designed clothes, mostly black in colour. Being tall and thin, she had a rare elegance and with her upright carriage and striking looks you could always pick her out from the crowd.

Both her parents died when she was quite young, so when I met her she was an orphan, though she is survived by her elder brother and sister.

I have many fond memories of Maureen and many amusing stories of her idiosyncrasies.

When she was in her teens Maureen had been an artist’s model, and had been painted by notable artists. She had a story about one such painting which hung on the wall in an office at La Trobe University. She was attending an interview with a tutor perhaps, who remarked when he saw her that she looked familiar. Maureen realised that the painting behind him was one of her, which explained his sense of familiarity, but didn’t let him into the secret.

She was a caring person who worked for many years providing employment advice to disadvantaged youth. I don’t think she had a cynical bone in her body and approached the world in an open hearted, perhaps somewhat naive manner.

She never married nor had children, but she owned a little terrace house in Brunswick and had lived there many years by herself by choice. She was secretive about her personal life so I don’t know if she had any special friends or lovers.  As I said before she was very independent and never asked anything of other people, and was unquestionably honest and upright in her dealings.

Highly intelligent and pure living (cigarettes were her only vice) Maureen was a smart, beautiful, elegant and charmingly eccentric person – an unique and original individual who will be grievously missed by all who knew her.

Rest in peace Maureen. I’m sorry I never got the chance to say good bye, but you’ll always live in my memory as one of this old sinner’s dearest friends and I’ll be sad when I look at the unusual presents you’ve given me over the years, as they’ll represent a little piece of Maureen for me.

Clothes As Art – Modern Love

Bendigo Art Gallery Interior – Permanent Collection

I’ve never really thought about clothes as forms of art, but when you think about it, some haute couture is just that - the imaginative use of materials and textiles in new and dynamic ways as a form of artistic expression.

For a person who expresses little interest in fashion, and certainly doesn’t dress á la mode, I appear to have attended three exhibitions over the past 12 months that concentrated on fashion and clothing. Blame it all on my friend M, who is keen on clothes and always dresses very stylishly unlike myself.

In April or May last year I went to the ACMI Hollywood Costume Exhibition in Federation Square, then in November attended the Edward Steichen Exhibition at the Victorian National Gallery. And this week M and I ventured to Bendigo to visit the Bendigo Art Gallery’s Modern Love exhibition

Because the train tracks were being upgraded or something, we travelled to Bendigo by a VLine bus. It took about two hours to get from Southern Cross Station to Bendigo Station and from there we walked to the Art Gallery. Opinions of the locals were varied as to the difficulty of the walk, one woman averring that it was hard, and a bus driver telling us it was easy. We believed the bus driver and he was right – it was an easy 15 minute stroll through the main street of Bendigo to the gallery.

Bendigo is a pleasant rural city about 150 kilometres from Melbourne  that originated as a boom town in the 1850s gold rush.  It has many fine buildings still extant from the period.

The Capital – Bendigo’s Performing Arts Centre next door to the Bendigo Art Gallery

On to Modern Love…

The Exhibition, subtitled “fashion visionaries from the FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising) Museum LA” covered  fashion from the 1980s to the present. Many well known designers were represented – Chanel, Yves St Laurent, Christian Dior, Comme des Garçons, Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen; the list goes on.

The costumes ranged from punk to glamorous, all highly individual designs, many in bright colours. There was the outrageous and the beautiful; clothes you wouldn’t mind wearing and others you wouldn’t be seen dead in. 

I assumed that photography was banned so didn’t take any photos of the exhibits, though apparently non flash photography was permitted.

Here’s some photos I found on Google Images…


Wool Jersey dress designed by Christian Francis Roth – photo from Milca Designs

Vivienne Westwood – Anglomania Suit – photo from Handmade by Carolyn Blogspot

As well as the exhibits,  there were videos playing on big screens with footage of the clothes being modelled on the catwalk by famous models. This was both mesmerising and occasionally hilarious.

It took about two hours to absorb the exhibition -  reading the commentary, viewing the costumes and videos - so we didn’t have much time to explore the rest of the Bendigo township, before catching the bus back to Melbourne.

Folly created by Sebastian Di Moro in the garden adjoining the Bendigo Art Gallery. It ‘s made out of timber, polystyrene, fibreglass and artificial grass

If you are into fashion or the history of haute couture, or just like beautiful clothes, you would probably enjoy the Modern Love Exhibition. Even a non fashionista like me found it interesting and felt the trip to Bendigo was worth it. 

Edward Steichen & Art Deco Fashion

Model wearing a black tulle headdress by Suzanne Talbot and a brocade coat with a black fur collar 1925

Now that the spring racing carnival is over, I am left scratching my head for topics to post on. But as I did take the opportunity to go the current exhibition at the Victorian National Gallery last Wednesday I'll give you a short review of what was on offer .

I know I have written that I am not interested in fashion, but this is not strictly true, as in my younger days I loved old clothes, and even today I can appreciate beautiful fabrics and stylish costumes.

As Art Deco is my favourite style,  I just had to go along to the exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, which features the photography of Edward Steichen, photographer to the beautiful and famous in the 1920s and 30s. He was the official photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair, and is renowned, not only for portraits, but also fashion photography.

As well as photographs there was a display of  garments from the period, and I am here to attest that they were all stunning, both in design and manufacture.

If you consider the  girls in their frocks and fascinators during the spring racing carnival, their clothes are dull and uninspiring compared to the stylish creations of the 1920s and 30s.  The gowns of the Jazz Age were designed to party in, the skirts cut in such a way that they flared, sparkled and swang when dancing. The fabrics were gorgeous: silk, velvet and spangles combined to create glamour and also provide comfort and freedom of movement.

Back in the 1960s you could still find 1920s and 30s dresses in op shops, but they’re scarce these days. I used to have a couple of beautifully cut crepe dresses and also a black dress with gold lace which could date back to the Jazz Age. The below picture is of me pretending to be a vampire or something at a Space Age Books party, wearing said costume.

As for the photographs, there were 200 of them to look at. Steichen was very particular about the lighting of his subjects and he was a master at it. There was a short film of Steichen at work in his studio, photographing a dancer, which was interesting to watch. He used gelatine plates for his photos, and had a trained technician standing by to quickly insert and extract the plates in a primitive “burst” mode to capture the dancer’s movements.

I found the exhibition to be interesting and absorbing, and well worth going to see.

To finish this post here’s one of Edward Steichen’s iconic photographs – of Gloria Swanson.

Gloria Swanson 1934