Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 5 March 1975, page 4
WHEN MODELS WERE
FETED LIKE FILM STARS
Along with the emer-gence ot the superstar mannequin came the "charm" school. The
girls, at right, were one of the early graduation
classes to receive their
diplomas from June Dally Watkins' school, which opened in 1950.
June Dally Watkins today.
June Dally Watkins looks back on the fabulous 'fifties, when a mannequin was considered the
nearest thing to a goddess
"THE fabulous "50s,"
sighed June Dally Watkins, rifling through the jumble of faded pictures in the old suit-cases. "They really were
fantastic years," she
added, picking out yet another print showing the style of the era when she was a top Sydney
model.
Glamorous laces gazed np fruin the floor where looked-at pictures had been
discarded. The hats, the
hairstyles, the unadorned
luminous eyes, the dark lipsticks — it all belonged to the "look" of two decades
back.
"Those beautiful evening gowns! Weren't they lavishly
decorated, so feminine, so
glamorous? Those years were
wonderful ones for fashion.
"Models were treated like
film stars. Everyone knew
our names, we were feted.
Young girls copied our make-up, our hairstyles,
clothes, read about and
envied our glamorous lives. All that has changed. Today it is matter-of-fact and solely
hard work.
"The '50s models looked like models wherever they
went. Not for them the casual jeans, shirt, and no make-up.
"And we didn't have such
a fantastic range of cosmetics, wigs, hair-pieces, eyelashes. We had to be
ingenious. If you weren't a natural beauly you had little to help you.
"Today's models are very good. You won't recognise
them as models when they
aren't working, but when they do a job they can create any image needed. They are really cleverer than their prototypes of 20 years ago.
And to them it is a
profession, not a way of life.
"Today a top model in Sydney can earn up to $500 a
week. In 1952 a model was
paid a guinea ($2.10) a shot.
They were lucky to earn eight pounds ($16) a week, and they had to provide most
of their own clothes, and of course their cosmetics.
"I remember one girl
complaining because she had to buy a four pound seven-and-six ($8.75) pair of
flat-heeled shoes for a
particular picture. And she only got a guinea for the job!"
(Realising that the cost of living and looking glamorous didn't go together, Sydney
models in 1952 banded
together forming ihe Man-nequin and Photogrpahic
Models' Association of NSW. They asked for two
guineas for a single shot, or a guinea and a half for the first shot and a guinea for
successive shots).
The reminiscing, which took place in the office from
which June controls her
model agency and school of deportment, came about because it is 25 years since
she started her classes in a
dusty old rented photograph-
ic studio.
By
GLORIA NEWTON
She opened her "charm" school (as she then termed it) with trepidation, expecting it
to be short-lived. But the small class of six she started
out with soon grew, until today she looks back on some 50,000 graduates.
Slim, long-legged, metic-ulously groomed June Dally
Watkins is now in her middle 40s, and still has the
The New Look was shin length
model's symmetry of face, fine skin, and clear eyes.
Her yen for modelling began when she was growing up in the NSW country town of Watsons Creek, just out
of Tamworth.
The city store catalogues were regularly dropped in her parents' mailbox, and she
would read them avidly.
"I used to go through the pages looking at the beauti-ful girls who smiled out from them, promising myself that one day I'd join them.
"When I finished school,
mother and I came to
Sydney. I headed straight for a large department store and
announced thai I wanted to
model. Strangely enough
they gave me a job there and then posing for their catalogue. I was paid the large sum of half a guinea
and felt very rich.
"lt was an encouraging start. I did the rounds of the big stores, finally landing a
mannequin job. I had no training. There was none in 1944. I was terrible when I started, but as I kept on getting jobs I learnt and improved — and loved it.
"As there wasn't enough model work in those days to keep you going, I supplemented my earnings by working for a while as a
window dresser and a
make-up artist. I didn't know the least thing about either,
but managed to bluff my way through.
"Each season there were
the mannequin parades — as they were called. And were they productions! Big
audiences, afternoon tea, winding staircases, and catwalks. And we were the superstars — like Fairy Folkes, Coralie Kelly, Lois Stevens, June Mallet, Pat
Firman."
June modelled Christian Dior's controversial New Look when it was paraded in Sydney in 1948, the first time the designer had shown outside Paris. She also modelled for Balmain, who sent a collection of clothes
June Dally Watkins showing a white chiffon Carven gown at the opening of The Australian Women's Weekly-sponsored 1947 season of famous French fashions, held at Sydney's Princes restaurant.
Above: A fashion shot of the 1950s with June Dally Watkins, centre, Lois Stevens, top left, June Mallet, top right, and Pam Clemson, bottom right.
Left: Jeanette Elphick, later to become film star Victoria Shaw, being made up by June Dally Watkins for her first photographic assignment at 15.
shown by both Paris and Sydney models.
The New Look was
shin length had nipped-in
waists and whirlaway, stiffened skirts.
"It took me four years to
become established. The
pinnacle was when I won a
newspaper 'Model of the Year award' and started to make money, which wasn't
easy in those days. But I always treated my work as a serious career rather than a
glamorous way of life."
The next step in that
career came in 1950 when
June's mother urged her to open the "charm" school. Similar schools were
flourishing in Europe and America. "I had brochures printed
saying I would accept 'selected' students — what a
cheek! —for eight weeks' instruction in deportment, grooming, make-up, manne-
quin training and exercises,
using the telephone number
of our Kings Cross flat.
"Then I hired a
photographic studio for night classes.
"The six students of the first week grew to 12 in the
second. And from this class
came Pat Woodley, Maureen
Duval, and Fran Wilkins —
all to become big names in
the model world, with Pat
going on to win the Miss
Australia title.
"In all, I have trained seven Miss Australias.
"I kept on modelling during the day because I was sure the school wasn't going
to last."
Before the school's
opening June spent weeks
putting together a program which she thought would help young girls gain confidence and help them
it they wanted to be models.
"I tried to work out what had made me successful. The
walking, standing, the techniques for skin and hair care, how to dress. I learnt the hard way by trial and error, but it helped me with my teaching."
When she ordered 20
diplomas to be printed for her first graduation cere-mony, her mother said.
"Make it 300, they'll be cheaper."
"I was horrified, wonder-
ing what I'd do with all those leftover diplomas."
There were no leftovers. The school flourished. So much so that after six months
she opened another, in Brisbane, training staff to run it. lt is still operating.
As classes continued to
grow more space was needed in Sydney, so June moved to
an old film studio in
Castlereagh Street. She
borrowed a desk, built a
three-ply partition around it.
and installed her first
business telephone.
"That studio was well used. There were auction
sales in it during the day, and screenings of advertising
films. Then I'd move in with
my girls. I was still working as a model, nearly killing myself, but life was stimulating, exciting."
When the idea of starting a model agency first came to her, she was told that it just
wouldn't work, that clients
liked to personally contact
the models.
"But I knew advertising
agencies were getting busier and I was turning out some good professional models.
"Some of the first names
on my agency books were Jeanette Elphick — remem-
ber, she went to Hollywood
and changed her name to
Victoria Shaw when she became a film star? —
Michelle Safargy, Jean Newington, and Marie
Roberts.
"That agency was really the beginning of serious
training tor models in Sydney, and modelling itself
became a serious business.
"Clients soon got into the habit of phoning to ask if I could send the right type of model for a specific photograph. Soon we were getting up to 100 model jobs a day."
By this time June had moved again — to a "junk" room in the same building,
where she created a better office for herself and one for her secretary.
In 1952 with the school
and agency well established,
and associate teachers
trained, June took a collection of clothes round
the world to give one-man mannequin shows. When she found she couldn't get a compere to appear with her, she'd compere herself.
"I felt like a one-man
band, parading in a gown and then racing up to the microphone to describe it."
Orry-Kelly, the American dress designer, introduced her to the Hollywood world. More pictures plucked from
"Young girls read about our glamorous lives"
the suitcase showed her with
Spencer Tracy, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Bob Hope, and Gregory Peck, "who was someone very special."
She met him again in Italy and has faded Rome newspaper clippings with pictures of her holding hands
with the handsome star as
they strolled along a street, sitting with him at a famous
restaurant.
"I still correspond with him and with Bob Hope."
Back in Sydney, June married John Clifford and
during the next few vears had four children, still working day and night. "I'd leave the hospital with a baby and go straight into the
office.
"As a working mother, I was made to feel guilty and
told that my children would
turn into delinquents. I'm glad to say that Carel, who is 20, Timothy, 18, Marc, 14, and Lisa, 12, are the most normal and wonderful children.
"To me children need two
things: love and security. And they can miss out on these even if they have a mother who stays home ail the time."
Today, June's interests are grouped in the one George Street building.
Her main business concern
is her training courses.
"I'm approaching my 50s but to me life is still exciting and stimulating. Although
there are times when I feel a
little like a female Mr Chips.
"That's when girls come in to sign up for a course and
tell me their mothers — and grandmothers — did one
before them."