Homemade cream wool crepe dolls dress with smocking

View this record on the National Museum of Australia's website

Type: Dolls clothing
Place: Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia
Materials: Cotton thread, Plastic - non specific, Textile - non specific, Wool - non specific
Collection: Susan and Andrew Gibson collection
Accession number: 2013.0038.0333

Description

A homemade cream wool crepe dolls dress with scalloped buttonhole embroidery at neck and smocking details at the waist, sleeve and hem in cream cotton thread. On the back there are three white plastic buttons with thread loops to fasten. A cream silk satin ribbon is threaded through a channel at the waist and ties at the back. The dress has several holes throughout.

About the collection

The Susan and Andrew Gibson collection comprises over 60 dolls; about 25 soft toys; dolls' clothes and accessories; a dolls' house; a toy piano; a miniature (once functioning) sewing machine; a Noah's Ark set; a tin fort; many sets of miniature figures and accessories including zoo, garden, farm, soldiers, huntsmen, Zulus, and cowboys & Indians; metal and wooden boats and planes; several sets of alphabet blocks; dress-up costumes; dominoes, marbles, Meccano and magnets; wheeled toys; a large rocking horse; a dolls' pram; toys for outdoor play; a toy box, and a rug to play on. Most of the toys show evidence of extensive use but some, including some of the dolls, are in fine condition. Most of the collection relates to a decade of use from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, well into the era of the industrial mass production and globalisation of toys and toy brands which had begun in the late nineteenth century, but before the postwar merchandising of toys based on film and television productions. Many of the toys may have been locally produced but British and European brands are also strongly represented. The toys were played with by a single generation of children, Susan and Andrew Gibson, of 'Burrungurroolong', near Goulburn in NSW. The collection has been preserved largely intact by the family, and therefore offers a rich insight into childhood and the nature of play in that era. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by the Gibson family in memory of Andrew and Susan Gibson.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 6:28:34 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-02-19. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.