POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

'Aboriginal Wedding Dress', designed by Robyn Caughlan

Object No. 99/135/2

The Aboriginal wedding dress was designed by Robyn Caughlan in 1998 for a catwalk collection show of twenty of her designs which travelled to Egypt. The dress was worn by Aliera French in the 1999 'The Great Australian Fashion Show' in Cairo, Aswan, Luxor, Hurghada and Alexandria. All the garments were modelled by Indigenous models. This wedding gown suggests that the wearer is wedded to her land and it is coloured as the traditional Aboriginal flag with red earth, black sky and the central sun. Born in 1950 at Westmead Hospital, New South Wales, Robyn Caughlan is a Dharug and Darkinjung woman who has spent most of her life in New South Wales. As a trailblazer in the First Nations fashion industry, Robyn holds the distinction of being the first Indigenous artist to showcase a ready-to-wear fashion collection at Australian Fashion Week in 2003. For the first thirty years of her life, Robyn was unaware of her First Nations heritage, having been taken from her birth mother's care at the age of five and placed in a foster family. Despite her good relationship with her foster parents and sister, she speaks often of how she felt a void within herself that was only filled once she reconnected with her Dharug and Darkinjung roots. Robyn began her artistic journey as a painter during the 1980s, eventually transitioning to fashion design in the 1990s. She quickly gained recognition for her work, which included creating hand-painted designs on gowns for Australian contestants in the Miss World, Universe, and Teen Universe pageants. Her work has been worn and admired all over the world, from New York to Milan, Egypt to Helsinki, and even at the Emmy Awards. In conversation with Robyn, she has mentioned that many of her dresses have gone missing over the years while traveling because ‘the models loved them and took them’. In 1990 and 1991, Robyn was voted Aboriginal Artist of the Year, and subsequently became the director of the Boomalli Gallery in Leichhardt from 1992 to 1993. The Powerhouse has had a longstanding relationship with Robyn, which began in the late 1990s when we acquired two of her dresses: the iconic "Aboriginal wedding dress" and the silk ensemble "Meeting Place," which was worn by Jodie McMullen in the 1996 Miss Universe pageant in Las Vegas. Both dresses were featured in the Powerhouse exhibition Bayagul: Speaking Up - Contemporary Indigenous Communication, which was relevant to the 1999 Textiles and Design syllabus for high schools in New South Wales. The "Aboriginal wedding dress" would go on to be a focal point in the HSC (High School Certificate) Textile and Design curriculum for years to come. In addition, the Powerhouse has also collected textile swatches and a series of wine bottles that Robyn designed the labels for. Lindie Ward 2008 Updated by Madeline Poll, Assistant Curator, 2023