She's a store, she's so much more: Sportsgirl the brand and the social construction of young women in 1960s Australia

This paper explores the emergence of one of Australia's first youth fashion brands, beginning with the development of its original flagship store and its advertising in Melbourne newspapers in the 1960s. This analysis is in terms of how the brand was inserted within the national culture with regard to the social roles presented to young women and the broader social and economic changes of the period. It explores the way the Sportsgirl brand participated in constructing for young Australian women, their increasing identification as independent, adventurous and in charge of their own sexuality. In doing so, it seeks to draw attention to the ways in which the changing aspirations and values of young women were first incorporated by the proliferating post-war consumer culture. Primary sources and interviews are used here to investigate the origins and development of the strategic decisions and approaches to the building up of the boutique and the brand. The way the Bardas family business used design and advertising and positioned the first Sportsgirl store, are analysed in terms of how their strategies were informed by overseas developments in youth fashion retailing and how they introduced significant changes to the context of the existing local retail environment. Studies on birth control and women's workplace participation inform this paper's explanation of how young Australian women were increasingly educated, economically independent and taking advantage of access to contraception to delay motherhood in order to experience a brief period of relative independence. In addition, a survey of the representation of young women in newspapers of the period provided evidence of how newspapers participated in attempting to bring young women 'into line'. It has revealed how they were offered a very limited number of possible roles and encouraged to think of the period of their lives between girls at school under the control of their fathers until safely ensconced as mothers and wives under the control of their husbands, as dangerous. Sportsgirl, the boutique that became a major Australian fashion brand, challenged the established department stores using design and lifestyle marketing for the emerging youth market in the 1960s and led the Australian fashion industry to a more modern manufacturing and diversified marketing system. Sportsgirl's identity was established as a brand using interior design, visual merchandising, graphic design and advertising, in addition to the design of its textiles and clothing. This paper examines the emergence of the Collins Street store and newspaper advertising where Sportsgirl presented rapidly changing design 'looks' that linked its clothing lines into a supporting set of fantasy scenarios and exciting adventures that mirrored the aspirations of a new generation of young Australian women.