Australian Classic

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Dress: Vintage, 1970s Airs & Graces lace & silk

Heels: Novo patent

Bag: Vintage, 1960s plastic bead & bamboo handle

Hat: Vintage, 1940s netting, faux floral & velvet

Hinged Bangle: Dororo gold & hand painted

Wrap: Knots woven cotton

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In celebration of Australia Day 2015, I am channeling Irma - played by the talented yet undervalued Karen Robson - in Peter Weir's 1975 masterpiece, Picnic at Hanging Rock, based on Joan Lindsay's seminal 1967 novel of the same name.

Everyone agreed that the day was just right for the picnic to Hanging Rock - a shimmering summer morning warm & still, with cicadas shrilling all through breakfast from the loquat trees outside the dressing-room windows & bees murmuring above the pansies bordering the drive... The borders at Mrs Appleyard's College for Young Ladies had been up & scanning the bright unclouded sky since six o'clock and were now fluttering about in their holiday muslins like a flock of excited butterflies... (page 1) 

This beautiful vintage lace dress by Airs & Graces formed the basis of my ensemble, evoking the sensibilities of finishing-schoolgirl chic in the early 1900s with its three-quarter sleeves, button-down yoke & blush pink threaded ribbon. 

Accessories helped to update the look for the modern era - a pair of blush patent platform sandals from Novo (to match the ribbon detail); a funky 1960s handbag with bamboo handles, made from plastic beads, arranged to form a picture of pink roses; a gold hinged bangle, hand-painted in China & a stunning 1940s vintage hat sculpted in wire & netting & covered in a selection of faux flowers finished off with a green velvet bow. 

There's a high probability that the hat was once worn by a bridesmaid somewhere but I'm not bothered; it serves my purpose admirably, the shape seems as though it was made for my head & I don't even require a hat pin to keep it in place!

For those of you who've never heard of this Australian classic, here's a quick synopsis:

On Valentines Day 1900, a party of girls from Appleyard College, a fictitious upper-class private boarding school, travel to Hanging Rock in the Mount Macedon Area of Victoria for a picnic. The excursion ends in tragedy when 3 of the girls - & later one their teachers - inexplicably vanish while climbing the rock. No reason for their disappearance is ever given & one of the missing girls is later found with no memory of what happened to her companions. A 4th girl, who also climbed the rock that day, is unable to shed any light on the situation as she has returned almost catatonic with distress.

The disappearance provokes a maelstrom of local concern & international sensation, particularly when several searches of the picnic grounds & surrounding rocky outcrops turn up nothing. A young man on a private search finds 1 of the girls but is himself found in an unexplained daze - yet another victim of "the rock." Concerned parents begin withdrawing their daughters from the formerly prestigious college & members of staff - including the headmistress - either resign or meet tragic ends. In fact, in the end we are told that both the college & the police station housing all records of the event are engulfed in flames shortly afterwards...

In my opinion, the film adaptation is nothing short of a masterpiece, due in large part to the brilliance of cinematographer Russel Boyd, whose distinctive & visually hypnotic style captured the majestically beautiful landscape with sublimely spooky undertones; the haunting soundtrack by Bruce Smeaton, comprising of panpipes & organs; the accomplished acting skills of the ethereal Anne-Louise Lambert, who played the doomed Miranda & last but not least, the bravery of director Weir, who defied critics by leaving the story open-ended, as Lindsay had initially intended. 

"Miranda...!" There was no answering voice. The awful silence closed in & Edith began, quite loudly now, to scream. If her terrified cries had been heard by anyone but a wallaby squatting in a clump of bracken a few feet away, the picnic at Hanging Rock might yet have been just another picnic on a summer's day. Nobody did hear them. The wallaby sprang up in alarm & bounded away, as Edith turned back, plunged blindly into the scrub & ran, stumbling & screaming, towards the plain. (page 36)

So, what DID happen to the girls?

Abduction, murder, accident... or something supernatural?

And most of all, was this story based on real events?

Both the novel & the film have bewitched, horrified, mystified & enchanted fans for almost 50 years (the film celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2015) & interest in the story doesn't appear to be waning - the inexorably ambiguous ending providing fodder for both artists & fellow authors. As Joan Lindsay herself intoned in the caveat on the first page of the novel:

Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction, my readers my decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic took place in the year nineteen hundred, and all the characters who appear in the book are long since dead, it hardly seems important.

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