Dress and jacket ensemble

Worldly, highly civilised clothes'

This ensemble features all of the hallmarks of a classic 'Emma Knuckey' garment. Committed to 'quality export fabrics, first class worksmanship - pure uncluttered design and line', Knuckey made what Kirkcaldie Stains department store described as 'worldly, highly civilised clothes that speak for themselves... superbly elegant, infinitely wearable'.

Knuckey preferred working with natural fabrics such as wool, linen and silk, and throughout the 1960s selected unpatterned fabrics,to emphasise the clean lines of her cut. Aware that such fabrics could appearall too plain, she added surface interest to her designs through subtle detailing that emphasised the cut of the garment and the figure of the wearer, including rows of pintucks or stitching, or a strategically placed 'Jackie Kennedy' bow or button.

In 1963, Shelia Scotter, editor of Vogue Australia and Vogue New Zealand, included Knuckey in an article entitled ‘Five Leaders of New Zealand Couture’. Scotter admiringly wrote: ‘She knows every seam, every bow, almost every stitch that goes into a model from her workrooms.'