Costume, child's (Black Cat)

Fancy dress

This dress is part of an extraordinary collection of 21 children's dresses and home-made dress-ups worn in the 1950s and 60s by the O'Brien children – Shelley, Maureen, and David. The dresses represent popular girls' fashion from this period, and include a range of home-made garments, and garments manufactured in New Zealand and USA.

The collection embodies the story of the three children growing up in Tinui, a rural community near Castlepoint in the Wairarapa, with all the rituals, triumphs, hardships, and joys of a rural life.

This cat suit costume was made in 1955 by Winifred O'Hara for her granddaughter Shelley. Grandma Winifred (Win or Winnie) was a skilled home-sewer with a reputation for perfection, who did all her sewing on a treadle sewing machine. Each year she came up with a theme, and made her grandchildren costumes to wear to the annual children's costume party. These were held at the local hall in Tinui, a small rural community near Castlepoint in the Wairarapa. The year that Shelley went as a cat, her sister Maureen was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.