Foy and Gibson: Fashion, fibre and fit

One hundred years ago, Foy & Gibson’s extensive mills – then known as its ‘two miles of mills’ – dominated the suburb of Collingwood. Woollen mills, spinning mills, and hosiery and knitting mills spread along Wellington, Cambridge and Oxford Streets, where warehouse conversions now stand.

The slogan, ‘from the sheep’s back to yours’, pointed to Foy & Gibson’s use of Australian wool worked in these mills, then made into cloth and clothing to be sold from its flagship Smith Street store – and later other stores in Melbourne and across Australia. Many shopped in-store for their clothes, but rural consumers turned to Foy & Gibson’s mail order catalogues from the 1890s and across the first half of the twentieth century to help make their selections.

This talk uses the catalogues richly illustrated pages to explore Foy & Gibson's focus on fashion, fibre and fit.

Presented by social and cultural historian Dr Lorinda Kramer.

Dr Lorinda Cramer is a lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Deakin University. A social and cultural historian with a decades-long professional background as a museum curator, her work explores the gendered dimensions of dress and textiles, and sustainable fashion and waste. In 2022, she was Redmond Barry Fellow as part of the State Library of Victoria Fellowships program, supported by the University of Melbourne. During the fellowship, she explored the impact of two prominent Victorian manufacturers – Foy & Gibson and Fletcher Jones – to Australian fashion.

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