item details
Overview
A 'straight' 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 made 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.
Winifred O'Hara made this particular dress for her granddaughter Shelley O'Brien. It was Shelley's first 'straight' dress; prior to this, all her dresses had a flared skirt. Shelley was in the third form at Solway College when she wore it.
Winifred made a town dress and a school dress for each girl every year. She was a skilled home-sewer with a reputation for perfection, who did all her sewing on a treadle sewing machine.