Double Lecture and Afternoon Tea. Luxury Tales: Fashion and Interiors with Peter McNeil

When Dior was asked to explain the luxury of high fashion to Time Magazine [1957] he replied: ‘We inherited a tradition of craftsmanship rooted in the anonymous artisans who constructed the cathedrals and expressed their genius in chiselled stone gargoyles and cherubs. We also benefit , paradoxically, from having a singularly difficult consumer, the Parisienne’.

In this double lecture we explore the vagaries of luxury from the ballgowns of the 19th-century Dollar Princesses, to the consumption of chocolates and mass-produced foodstuffs, to health, insurance, cars, air conditioning, gemstones, ‘Gentlemen’ preferring ‘Blondes’, the Reagan and Thatcher years, the decline of the great plutocrat collectors, and the rise of ‘masstige’ or mass luxury and experience culture.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous across the 19^th and 20^th centuries are discussed, through the intersections of fashion, interiors, and consumer products. Learn about the vagaries, changes and also the persistence of luxury as both practice and concept across time, place and experience, from fashion to the interior and back again.

Distinguished Professor Peter McNeil is an award-winning fashion historian who works at University of Technology Sydney. He began his career researching Australian design. The relationship of fashion, furniture and interior design remains a life-long passion for him, along with the under-rated design activity of women and queer men. His monographs include Luxury: A Rich History; and Pretty Gentlemen: Eighteenth-Century Dress and The Macaroni Fashion World. He has a special interest in 20^th-century women patrons and collectors.

Your ticket includes two lectures by special guest Peter McNeil, and an afternoon tea of petit fours and tea or Market Lane coffee, served on our Wedgwood fine bone china, and time to browse our exclusive range of books, gifts, and homewares at TJC Emporium.

This event is presented on-site at The Johnston Collection as part of the Paypal Melbourne Fashion Festival Independent Programme.

Please see your ticket for details. NOTE: Tickets for this event do not include access to our house museum, Fairhall. Guided tours of the current exhibition can be booked separately.

This event is supported by The Colin Holden Charitable Trust.

Image: Attributed to René-Sim Lacaze, Study for a necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels, 1935-41.