Today Nic and I attended the Port Festival. This event is held every second year to celebrate the founding of our port (by our White/English settlers) and the boats that they arrived on for the first hundred years of settlement. The event organisers invite the society members to attend in 1830s clothing (or up to the 1860s) to represent the first white settlers and add ambiance to the day. The organisers close off a few streets and set up vendors of local Arts and Crafts as well as performing artists. The Railway Museum, Maritime Museum and Aviation Museum also open their doors to the public with free admission during the festival. It is always a very enjoyable day of wandering around the amazing old stone buildings and meeting lots of wonderful new people. This year they also had two of Australia's Tall Ships in dock, that members of the public could board for a small gold coin donation.
This year I wore my circa 1838 cotton dress with straw bonnet, to represent a middle class woman visiting town for the day. Due to the heat and my inability to still complete his woolen frock coat (fate we think as it was 31C today), Nic wore his 1830s-1840s bush garb and was also very comfortable.
Me and Nic at the helm of the One and All.
Nic on an old steam train at the Railway Museum.
Oh my! Your 1838 cotton day dress is fabulous! I am going to see if there are more pictures of it! I love the shoulder detail on it! What a fun outing!!
ReplyDeleteGina
Thank you for your lovely comments, sometimes I believe that the more painful a dress is to construct... the more amazing it looks afterwards. I'm in no rush to make another like this one, but I do have some other intricate designs planned for future dresses. We are very lucky in that the Victoriana Society has over 50 members and we are well known in our state, so we get many invites to some amazing houses and events. We are a very lucky group.
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