Prue Acton Australian Fashion Designer Prue studied her craft at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and in 1964 and then went on to start her own fashion house, where she quickly became a key figure on the local fashion scene with her fabric and clothes design. Her trend-setting clothes featured bold colours and made extensive use of the new synthetic fabrics then becoming available. Fashion became a symbol of youth culture, and Prue Acton became the icon of Australian fashion design. Prue Acton established her signature label in the late 1960s.Her little A-line ‘shift’ dresses, hipster skirts, culottes and coats featuring short hemlines, peter pan collars, pretty prints, bold colours, and connotations of cute, modern school/business girl sexuality, were a response to young women’s greater freedom of choice in virtually all aspects of their lives including education, employment, travel, sex and marriage Prue Knew that ‘young ladies’ of the day did not want to emulate their mothers' lack of fashion style, Acton promoted the idea that her designs were for ‘young thinking people’ who wanted fun clothes to express their personalities and style (Prue Acton). |
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Fashion in the 1970s was daring, carefree, and diverse. For women, skirts ranged from extremely long to drastically short and fabrics were bright and boldly patterned.  As the women's liberation movement took hold in the 1970s, women's fashion broke free from convention. Bras and corsets were denounced as symbols of oppression and conformity, and were discarded by many women. Women also flouted their new-found freedom by wearing traditional male clothing like baggy trousers, men's jackets, vests, over-sized shirts, ties and hats. Fashion trends like miniskirts, bell bottoms and long hair carried over from the 1960s, although some women in the 1970s preferred to wear 'midi' (knee length) or free-flowing 'maxi' (floor length) skirts |
 1970s fashion was varied and changed frequently, but always liked to shock - whether it was towering platform shoes, huge bell-bottom flares, or tight, shiny, disco-inspired hot pants  The 70's saw new ethnic inspired fashion enter the mainstream fashion market. The dress above has a bohemian look to it and would have been considered fairly short as it sits just above the knee, however since dresses and skirts started to become known as mini skirts in the 70's they continued to get shorter and shorter each year untill in the early 80's the micro skirt was achieved. |
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