This lecture honours the life of Gwen Jones, a keen member and generous supporter of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria over many years until her death in 2021, aged 98. The lecture series will promote the vital role of The Jones Collection of the RHSV in documenting and supporting research on these themes.

The Jones Collection was donated to the RHSV by Gwen shortly before she died. Gwen’s creation, stewardship, and generosity surrounding the collection has ensured that future historians have an incredibly rich archive on which to draw.

Lives lived and clothes worn: reading Gwen Jones’ gowns

Clothing is a personal document that records experiences, reflects moments in time and captures aspects of its wearer. In this presentation, Lorinda Cramer delves into three gowns related to Gwen Jones in the collection of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria). As she reads these garments for the lives lived in and through them, she teases apart the social, cultural and fashion history in which these dresses were worn.

About Dr Lorinda Cramer

Dr Lorinda Cramer is a Lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Deakin University. Her work as a dress historian sits at the intersections of social history, cultural history and material culture studies. She employs an innovative methodology that draws on the materiality of museum objects to deepen insights into clothing’s connections with gender, race and class, to explore consumer preference, and to interrogate fashion as a worn experience.

Housekeeping

This event will be hybrid so presented in person in our rooms and also via ZOOM. Those purchasing ZOOM tickets will be sent the log-in details 24hrs before the event.

An automatically generated confirmation of booking email is sent on booking – please check your Trash or Spam folders if this email does not turn up in your in-box.

As with most of our events, refreshments will be served from 5:30pm – 6pm when the lecture starts (the Zoom session also starts at 6pm). There will be Q&A at the end of the lecture.