Suits and Frocks: Dressmakers and the Making of Feminine Identity in Postwar Australian Society

In a context of heightened domestic ideology post–World War II, self-employed dressmakers contributed significantly to the making of the identity of Australian women. Through the skilled work of interacting with their clients and sewing their clothes, dressmakers both supported individual women’s presentation of “self” and operated at the intersection of gender and class relations. Working at home, they were not only making women’s clothes but also producing the social world. Drawing on interviews with thirteen women, this paper explores how such dressmakers’ work constructed a visual representation and interpretation of a feminine identity particular to their time, place, and local cultural context.