Deportment queen June Dally-Watkins dies, aged 92
Those trained by Australian fashion, modelling and deportment icon June Dally-Watkins - who has died at the age of 92 - say people stood up straighter in the street when she passed them.
NSW
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Deportment queen June Dally-Watkins is being remembered as not only Australia’s most elegant woman but someone who taught that manners and respect never went out of fashion.
The country’s first supermodel died peacefully in her sleep aged 92 on Saturday night with her family by her side.
A mentor to today’s international models like Catherine McNeil, Miss Dally - as she was fondly known - had over 500,000 men and women go through her deportment classes and they all stood up straighter when they passed her in the street, friends said today.
“Manners and respect were a really important part of her life,” Chic model agency boss and one of Miss Dally’s proteges Ursula Hufnagl said today.
“She felt that they would propel you forward in every are of your life, whether business or private, and they were really a big part of her classes.”
They were attributes that she lived by as well as taught while she was always impeccably dressed, even around a swimming pool where made a swimsuit look elegant with heels and a large hat.
“She was always gracious and she always had a smile on her face,” Ms Hufnagl, whose Chic Management took over the June Dally-Watkins brand, said.
Having been discovered as a model at the age of 19 by Miss Dally, Ms Hufnagl can remember having lunch with her as an adult and still being terrified she would be seen as not holding her knife and fork and glasses correctly.
Ms Dally-Watkins taught generations of Qantas cabin staff when they were all female and opened her internationally famous modelling and charm school in 1950 at the same time as one of her friends, Eileen Ford, started what would become the famous Ford Modelling Agency in New York.
Born in 1927 at Watsons Creek near Tamworth, her mother had always instilled in her the importance of being elegant and self-confident.
“Miss Dally used to tell the story where her mother would gently tap her on the wrist if she wasn’t holding her forks correctly or standing in a particular way which was with poise, grace and confidence,” Jodie Bache-McLean, managing director of June Dally-Watkins Brisbane and Chic Management Brisbane said today.
Ms Bache-McLean said the “Dally pose”, leading slightly back with feet at 11 and 1 o-clock, became the way to stand when having your photograph taken.
In 1993 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to business.
Six years ago she was listed as one of the “100 Australian Legends – People Who Have Shaped a Nation.”
More recently she had been teaching etiquette to millions of students across China where she was treated as an icon.
“She had celebrity status there and thousands of people came to meet her and emulate her,” Ms Bache-McLean said.
“Her belief was that the best gift of all was to love yourself, not in a conceited way but to like the person that you are.”
She was also a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother and is survived by four children, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Miss Dally died of cancer.
Her family have asked for privacy and are expected to release a statement later today.