Charlotte’s clothes fill a storage facility. Soon, they will fit in her wardrobe – and, perhaps, yours
By Mary Ward
With pieces ranging from Victorian-era bodices to Jenny Kee jumpers, Charlotte Smith’s vintage fashion collection is considered one of the most significant in the world and largest in the southern hemisphere.
But after two decades, the former art and antiques dealer is downsizing.
“After 21 years, it is time for this clothing to have a new life instead of sitting in a storage facility all the time,” said Smith, who will hold on to “a couple of hundred” items, sending 1000 of the remainder to Canberra’s National Museum of Australia, and the rest to antique stores, where fashion fiends may be able to pick up a bold 1970s Hardy Amies suit or a beautifully embroidered Georgian jacket.
Fashion collector Charlotte Smith with some of her vintage clothing at Dirty Janes, Bowral.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Smith grew up on the US East Coast but married an Australian she met while working in London and moved to the Blue Mountains. She was bequeathed her godmother Doris Darnell’s collection of 3500 vintage fashion pieces, dated between 1790 and 1995, in 2004.
Acquiring thousands of designs herself – particularly late-20th century and Australian – the collection grew to 10,000 pieces.
She sold half in 2019. Now, Smith plans to keep just her own wardrobe and a few special pieces framed as art.
“My daughter has chosen a few things – she’s going to Ascot in the summer, so she’s chosen some hats and ballgowns.”
National Museum senior curator Cheryl Crilly said she “fangirled” Smith, an authority on vintage fashion, after a talk in 2019 that led to the coffee date where Smith confessed she was looking for new owners.
The museum’s new pieces reflect both the history of Australian fashion and Australians’ relationship with fashion, Crilly said.
There are designs from the Australian Wool Innovation project, as well as Dior gowns shown at David Jones’ postwar European fashion shows (and their imitations, sewn from patterns in The Australian Women’s Weekly).
Smith’s remaining thousands of garments will be sold at antique shop Dirty Janes’ Bowral and Canberra stores.
While the Bowral store will stock big-name designers, Canberra’s will focus on fashion as a resource, providing rare access to Victorian and Georgian garments for people who would like to learn from them.
“I am encouraging fashion students, milliners, designers, wedding dress designers, costume designers, anyone who would like to see a piece and turn it inside out to create a pattern and use,” Smith said.
For Smith, the collection is a testament to the power of respecting clothing, something lost in our modern way of buying and discarding clothes.
“Before me, there was my godmother looking after it, and of course, since it was made, each garment has been on a journey where it hasn’t been thrown away or ruined,” she said.
In the moments she doubted whether selling was the right decision, Smith returned to younger generations’ love of vintage shopping and the joy she finds in wearing a 1920s fur cape with Zara jeans.
“It’s a beautiful thing to have more people able to enjoy it.”
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