Pattern for Minuet dancer costume

This homemade paper pattern was designed and cut by Mollie Rodie for a Rococo-inspired costume worn by 'Minuet dancers' at the Victoria League's Empire Ball held in Wellington on 21 June 1938. The Minuet was performed by young women wearing blue dresses in ‘pastel shades of blue, pink, and lavender, worn with white wigs, gold shoes, fans, and mittens’ (The Evening Post, 22 June 1938).

The Minuet dancers were then seen at the 'Spirit of Empire' pageant held as part of the Wellington Centennial Exhibition from November 1939 to March 1940. The Evening Post newspaper reported on the costumes: 'gowns of regal splendour were chosen. Powder and patches were at their best with shimmering dresses of silver lame and white satin, made in the courtly manner of the Rococo period, they had tight little bodices and full panniered skirts trimmed with sequinned tulle, each dancer flirting with her silver fan' (27 November 1939).

The pageant was so successful that Rodie's costume designs were used again for a Red Cross pageant in September 1940, and again at the Victory Queen Carnival, Wellington Town Hall, June 1941. Pageants and queen carnivals were particularly popular ways to raise money during the Second World War (1939-45).

This pattern was one of many designed by Rodie during this period. She would take her patterns to local dressmakers in Wellington to be made up into costumes, including Anna Elizabeth Jones in Courtenay Place who advertised in the Evening Post: 'Your own material made into any type Frock, Coat, Suit' (19 April 1941) . This pattern is for the bodice only - the skirt would have been made from several metres of fabric gathered into the waist. It is also of interest for its upcycled elements - Rodie used newspapers of the day to make some of the pattern pieces.

Mollie Rodie

Mollie Rodie (b. 1919) showed an aptitude for writing, drawing and costume design from a young age (as a teenager in 1933 the Otago Daily Times observed that her dance costumes showed 'charming simplicity' (17 November)). She trained in art at Wellington Technical College, and at 17 travelled to London to study fashion drawing and completed an apprenticeship in fashion design and cutting. When she returned in 1936 she worked at Fashions Limited in Courtenay Place, one of the largest dressmaking firms in New Zealand. This is where she learnt how to draft patterns. Rodie went on to write popular fashion columns and features for a dozen newspapers and magazines, including the Evening Post, New Zealand Herald and the New Zealand Weekly News. During the war she wrote articles on upcycling and making-do. While working full-time during the war, Rodie volunteered to design many costumes for fundraising pageants and carnivals held between 1939 and 1941, including the huge Victory Queen Carnival in Wellington in 1941.