Glenda Dunens, Margot Isaacson and Sue Gull admiring a wedding gown up for adoption. PICTURE: LACHLAN BENCE
BALLARAT residents can now adopt and help preserve some of the city’s most important costumes, dresses and outfits.
The Art Gallery of Ballarat has launched Adopt A Frock, an initiative to help preserve the gallery’s costume collection into the future.
Marketing and public programs officer at the gallery, Peter Freund, said costs for adoption of these frocks would range from several hundred to several thousand dollars – depending on the conservation needs of the individual garment.
“You don’t get to keep the costumes, but you get the good feeling of helping to ensure their survival,” Mr Freund said.
“Most of the costumes in the collection have significant ties to Ballarat’s history.”
A descendent of Ballarat’s Herman family, who made a significant donation of gowns to the gallery, was the special guest at the recent Adopt A Frock lunch.
Margot Isaacson’s family donated a series of dresses by Melbourne couturiers Le Louvre to the gallery in the 1990s.
A notable Herman family gown was on display at the lunch – a wedding dress originally worn by Ms Isaacson’s aunt Laura, who married Frank Herman in 1935.
The wedding dress is remarkable because of its green colour, and matches with a jacket and lily of the valley veil.
All funds raised from the Adopt A Frock program go towards the conservation of the gallery’s small but significant costume collection.