They are the dresses of yesteryear, the gowns that a girl could dress in and feel like a princess – and they’re on display at the Cohuna Art Gallery for all to see.

As part of the ‘Days of Glamour’ exhibition, you can view these beautiful dresses owned and once worn by local women at balls across the district in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

The exhibition runs until October 26 and was officially opened on Friday with a morning tea on the lawn at the Civic Centre. In attendance to share their stories of days gone by were several women who have loaned their gowns for display. They have given our readers a glimpse into the days of the belle of the ball.

Joy Taylor (nee Wolsley)

Dances were nothing new to Joy, who had been singing with her family since she was 14 and attended dances to perform with the family band. She recalls as a 14-year-old reaching out trying to touch the dresses as they waltzed past her.

Joy’s dress (pictured) was bought with money from her father when she was 16, in 1963.

“Dad gave me the money and said go and buy yourself a dress. You weren’t allowed to wear long dresses unless you’d made your debut. We got that at Hawthorne’s in Kerang; Mum went with me. It had a petticoat under it, which stood it out.”

The dress also had straps, but Joy cut those off when her father wasn’t looking.

As a performer, there was more singing at balls than dancing, but when Joy and her husband Robert (a drummer), performed with their band The Lonely Ones, which played regularly at the Cohuna Ex-Students’ balls, their opportunity for dancing came between sets when the jazz band would take over.

Margaret Dunne (nee Phelan)

Marg has been around balls all her life – her father played in a dance band in Broadmeadows before the family moved to this area when she was young, where he continued to play at Pyramid Hill.

“I’ve danced all my life, I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t dance,” she said.

Marg’s late husband, Bill, was also a very good dancer, having been taught by nuns, and she says, he never missed a beat.

“I like the companionship of the balls. We got to know people from all over the state.”

Marg wore her gown (pictured) and won belle of the ball, and went on to compete as a belle of belles over near Ballarat. “You’re up against pretty stiff opposition when you get to that league, I can tell you. It all goes on your carriage, and your dancing partner has got to be at least your height, otherwise, that puts them out almost immediately.”

Marg wore a long sleeve, high neck fur or a shawl (pictured) inherited from her mother.

A skilled sewer, she proudly explains how she made the dress herself in the early 1970s. Having a roll of taffeta at home and buying a roll of fabric, she measured from the floor to her waist and divided it up to calculate the height of each skirt section.

“The only making part was the bodice – you had to get the right shape.”

“I always bought the material and made my ball gowns. The only one I bought was £80 – and my husband just about had a heart attack when I went home with it, he picked up the docket and he went white.”

With several dances a week, it was a different lifestyle altogether, Marg said.

“We’d work all day and then come home and spend until 2 o’clock in the morning getting something to wear ready to go next night. Then, you’d be off to work next morning, get home, through the bath and into the clothes because you had to drive to the dances.

“Dances were Tuesday nights. If you were practicing for something it would be on Wednesday nights. You couldn’t do it Thursday nights when it was football training because you’d have no partners.”

Judy Hipwell (nee Walker)

Judy bought her dress (pictured) from the Bendigo Fashion House when she was 19 years old for 80 guineas – quite a lot for a gown, winning belle of the ball wearing it and partnered by Tony Johnson.

“It looked lovely on the floor being black and white. I wore long black gloves and big chandelier earrings. As a rule, if you wore a strapless frock, your gloves were supposed to come to the top of the frock,” said Judy.

“I won a lot of belles and belle of belles with it.”

The belles of the ball were judged on the way you danced, the way you looked, the way you held yourself, your grooming, make up – everything. After winning a belle of the ball, you were eligible for the belle of belles.

“The belles that were chosen from a footballers ball – Cohuna, Leitchville, Kerang, Gunbower, Barham, they all had a belle of the ball for their footballers ball – the winner of those competed in the belle of belles. I won about two belle of belles.”

At the Kerang Memorial Hall opening ball in 1959, with 600 people in attendance and 26 girls vying for belle of the ball, Judy took the title. She was just 16 and wore a lemon frock (also in the exhibition), partnered by Geoff Pay.

Getting into a car wearing a gown with many layers wasn’t easy.

“You sort of squeezed it all up and sat down, put your seatbelt on, and of course when you got out, you’d have to undo your frock and straighten it all out again. I went to a ball at Sea Lake. The boy I partnered had a sports car – well, that wasn’t much fun getting into. He partnered me for a lot of balls because he was the right height.”

Most of the balls were in winter and you lifted your dresses up to avoid soiling them. Judy saved the cost of expensive dry cleaning by washing her gowns in the bath. The gowns had many layers, one had 60 yards of tule.

“I’d fill the bath and lay the dress in it,” she said.

Shirley Anderson (nee Vistarini)

Shirley Anderson danced at balls three times a week in places like Kerang, Murrabit, Wycheproof and Quambatook.

Having made her debut in Kerang (in a traditional white gown), she bought her exquisite pink ball gown (pictured) from Renee Rose in Melbourne. At 17 and having not long started working, she saved up the £36 for the gown.

“The first ball was always a special occasion,” Shirley said, and then went on to explain the complexities of owning and wearing such a gown.

“There’s a big hoop and petticoat under it, and when you get in the car, you have it all up above you. On wet nights, you had to be careful, you’d come in holding your dress up. If you got mud on your dress, you just wiped it off and kept dancing. The dresses needed to be dry cleaned, it was a lot of money. Mum used to iron the petticoat and starch it with the little black iron (not electric).”

Bruce Freeman was her first partner and she also danced regularly with Roger Cockroft. Several dances a week were held, with Wednesdays the most popular night, and dance nights running from 8pm through to about 1am. The Gay Charmers and Berv Thompson’s band were popular bands.

It wasn’t just the younger generation attending, parents and grandparents would go too, and would sit along the walls.

“My dad was a beautiful dancer. All the beautiful old dances, I loved them. You danced all night, you didn’t stop. You’d have a five-minute break and off you’d go again. We had a lot of fun.

“I think it was the good old days. We socialised; all the men would swap around and have different partners every dance, and you’d have the last dance with your friend.”

With no alcohol at the dances, the boys would head outside for a beer. No alcohol, but Shirley says they had beautiful suppers – although you always had to watch what you were eating.

“No cream puffs, because the cream would finish up down your dress.”

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 12 September 2024.