Undergarments on display

On Sunday 11th January, I headed to the Queensland Museum at South Bank to visit the Undergarments exhibition with the Australian Costumers Guild. It's an exhibition brought to Australia by the Victoria and Albert Museum, so it was quite the exciting event to attend. Of course, as I was in attendance with the ACG, we dressed up for the occasion. Many ladies in the group decided to wear vintage fashions, however we did have one Regency lady, two shameless ladies in bustle undergarments and two in full bustle kit. I was one in full bustle. I considered just wearing my undergarments with the other ladies for half a minute before I remembered that my victorian corset is mid-bust and there is a very great risk of accidental exposure. Plus, I do love my whole victorian outfit. I think it was lovely for the other visitors to the museum to see a couple of bustle gowns in full wear. To see how it all moves and the silhouette that you get from the undergarments on display.

The exhibition itself was fantastic. There was a really great range of period undergarments on display. I pretty much had my nose pressed to the glass trying to get a look at the stitching, seam lines and construction techniques. The only disappointment was that the book for the exhibition was simply the previously published Underwear Fashion In Detail book by V&A - which I bought on pre-order a couple of years ago. Don't get me wrong, it's a great book, but I always buy exhibition books, so it was sad not to get this one.

After viewing the exhibition, a number of us headed over to the cafe in the art gallery for lunch. We chatted more about what we had seen and discussed which ones we all want to try our hand at making. As it happens, I am currently drafting up a couple of period corsets, so it has given me a couple more ideas for how I would like to finish them.

Overall, it was a lovely outing. I didn't get a lot of photos (no photography inside the exhibition), but I will share the few that I did take, and of course the group photo from my cousin.