History of Swimwear

Cossies, swimmers, budgies and boardies

This hands-on program allows stage 6 Textiles and Design students to explore the properties and performance of historic swimwear while enriching their understanding of changes in designs and textile technologies over the past hundred years.

The workshop enables students to explore and handle selected historic swimwear from the Australian National Maritime Education Collection.  Students will investigate the historical, cultural and social contexts inherent in the evolution of swimwear dating from the 1900s. The hands-on experience provides students with a direct experience with a diverse range of fibres, yarns and fabrics, and they will discuss textile technologies, and both functional and aesthetic design features of this specific category of apparel. The concept of typology is explored with the placement of individual costumes on a timeline.

Students will:

• Develop an understanding of various design and manufacturing processes involved in producing swimwear, taking into account the changing technology and societal norms throughout the past century.
• Utilise the Museum’s education collection to support their learning of concepts such as fabric and fibre properties, and how design reflects social and technological changes over time.
• Value the role that museums have in preserving artefacts and making them accessible to the public.

 

Cost: $300 for groups of up to 15 students and 1 teacher

 $600 for groups of 16 – 30 students and 2 teachers

Ratio at least 1 supervising adult for every 15 students is required for all museum programs.

Workshop duration: 2½ hours including a 10min break if required.

Recommended visit duration: 3 hours for schools with up to 30 students, plus additional time if you wish to include a lunch break and/or visit museum exhibits and vessels (all bookings include FREE entry to all museum exhibitions and HMAS Vampire).

Accessibility: This is a workshop in our learning centre on the ground floor of the museum. If you or your students have any access or support requirements, please let us know when booking so we can assist everyone to have a valuable visit to the museum and you can find out more about accessibility at the museum here.  

For more information about school excursions please read our planning your school visit page.

A variation of this program is available for Stage 5 Textiles Technology students on request.

 

NSW Curriculum Links - Stage 6 Textiles and Design