One of the fashion designs by New Model Beauty Queen to feature in the performance. Photo credit: Penelope Bartlau
The State Library tonight will pay homage to the famous gold rush-era “Press Dress” in its Rialia Collection and to the socialite Mrs Matilda Butters who wore it to the Melbourne mayor’s fancy dress ball in 1866. The Press Dress is a gown made up of silk inked with the front pages of Melbourne newspaper of the day.
The Melbourne Spring Fashion Week event will transform the Dome Reading Room with dance performances, an installation of Preston Zly shoes and a traditional Chinese drumming performance to represent the Chinese communities who lived in Victoria during the gold rush period.
“When the audience walks in, I want them to feel like they’ve just dropped back into a weird version of 1866,” said Penelope Bartlau, director of the Barking Spider Visual Theatre.
Ms Bartlau has been working for weeks on the choreography, which combines the precision and uniformity of some 20 dancers. The project is the outcome of this year’s Dome Centenary Fellowship Award.
Models and dancers in the show will wear clothes designed by local brand New Model Beauty Queen. Known for using hand-drawn patterns, the collection is an attempt to capture the essence of Mrs Butters’ style with a modern twist. “She [Matilda Butters] would wear these outlandish outfits”, designer Dale Cornell told City Journal.
Mrs Butters was the wife of the mayor of Melbourne. She attended the ball in 1866 to welcome the new governor of Victoria. The Press Dress was donated to the State Library in 1951 and is held in a large wooden crate to preserve the delicate silk. It will be out on display once again with a crinoline beneath and bodice moulded around a specially designed mannequin.
Mrs Butters made quite a fashion statement at parties she attended, but her elaborate Press Dress received special attention from local newspapers. The Argus reported that “the greatest novelty in the room was decidedly the dress worn by Mrs. Butters”.
“She wore a fancy headdress, and she had a staff with a functioning miniature printing press on it, and through the night she would print Lord Byron poems on satin ribbon to hand out to other guests,” said Jo Ritale, State Library manager of the collection.
Liberty of the Press is on today at the State Library of Victoria.
Detail of one of the newspaper panels on the Press Dress. Photo credit: Penelope Bartlau
