South Australia is ready to get involved with the Australian Dress Register (ADR) following a workshop held at Ayers House Museum. On Friday 20 September an enthusiastic group of people met at Ayers House to find out about the ADR and how to include items from their collections on it. The Powerhouse Museum’s Lindie Ward presented the workshop with assistance from Mary-Anne Gooden from Artlab. Ayers House Museum generously hosted the event in their gorgeous dining room and provided access to costume items for use in the workshop.
The Australian Dress Register (ADR) is a collaborative online project initiated by the Powerhouse Museum to document significant and well provenanced men’s, women’s and children’s garments. The ADR was established in 2007 and was originally restricted to clothing relating to NSW. However, recently it has been opened up to include garments from around Australia. A large number of costume items are held in South Australian collections, both public and private, and the ADR provides an opportunity to showcase significant items while making the history about them readily available to other museums or individuals researching the history of Australian dress.
The ADR workshop was held as part of the combined 2013 South Australian State History Conference and Oral History Association of Australia National Conference. More images from the ADR workshop can be seen here and images from the conference here.