Brisbane retrospective

I am not in chronological order with my posts here, but work is so busy, I have time to sew a little (naturally) but not to take photographs, so I am back to talking about visiting Brisbane.
As I have undoubtedly posted too frequently, I went to a conference there in the middle of the month. Unfortunately, I did not do any fabric shopping. Ewan Gardams in the city has closed (a sharp pang hit me every time I walked down Adelaide St), I did not have time to travel out to Indooropilly, and I was in complete ignorance about a fabulous sounding shop in the Brisbane Arcade that Sue posted about mere days after my visit to the metropolis. Next time....
I did visit Lindcraft in the Queen St Mall Myer Centre, but spent less than ten minutes there. I was in search of printed swimwear lycra, which I had found there in January 2009, but this time there were no lycra prints at all, and the stock generally looked even more tawdry than during my visit earlier in the year. I felt sad about the demise of this shop. It was a mere 10 years ago that I could buy Liberty Tana Lawn there, in fact I still have some from their getting-rid-of-all-the-Liberty-sale (note to self, must sew this up)
However, there was a very interesting exhibit at the Museum of Brisbane. Touted as "For anyone who has ever dressed up for a special occasion"

I enjoyed this exhibition. I especially liked the thoughtful inclusion of a history of Brisbane transport exhibition in the other wing with which to distract my husband. There were some 19th century dresses behind glass - I was surprised by how clumsy and ugly the lace and trim on these dresses appeared. I had always thought lace from this period was very fine and beautifully made.
The most interesting part of this exhibition to me were the formal, fancy dresses worn by noteable women with a real job, such as Quentin Bryce the Governer General and Julia Bligh the QLD Premier. A dress worn by someone who has a serious position to uphold must require considerable designing skill. Juli Gbrac, the winner of Australian Project Runway had designed Mrs Bryce's dress - it looked terrific, with perfectly radiating pintucks as a detail at the hip. Lucky Mrs Bryce is such a slim and elegant lady! This dress was a complete contrast to a frock made for the Brisbane Mayor for a New Year Ball a few years ago - incredibly unflattering, I think the designer must have been a political opponent!

Another vaguely sewing related part of my sojourn in Brisbane was finding this book.

Purely a coffee table book, but such lovely photographs.

Last of all was a little snoop shopping. Unfortunately I was not able to actually enter the shop, but I walked past this dress twice a day in the window of Max Mara. I think one of my summer dresses will be inspired by this one.