Steel Hands
There's currently an exhibition in the Brisbane Town Hall's Brisbane Museum about the history of Beauty Paegents in Australia.
These aparatus were on display and I just had to photograph them.
I returned to this display today and I'm afraid I've led you all astray, this is a display of hand splints used by the Spastic Assoc. to prevent contracted fingers from digging in to people's palms and causing pain. The Miss Australia Quest for many years (at least from the 50's onwards) raised money for the Spastic Assoc. to help people with various diseases and conditions.
View all photos taken: Monday, 11th December 2006, This photo: 3:40pm
Rather bizarre image! What do they have to do with the history of beauty pageants then? Can't get my mind round that.
I really should have stopped to read the sign.... (doh!). But I guess they were used to teach proper hand deportment for modeling... There were some pretty bizarre contraptions there, including leg braces!
Wicked photo. You should have got the f/1.4
:)
This is a funny image. I like it!
The World Through My Eyes
Ah well there was the slight difference in cost Maz, $125 or $550.
I need to get a long tele and a macro before going for another standard lens (maybe the 35 f/2).
Thanks Suzanne, although I shudder to think what the poor girls who wore these felt like.
WOW I like it, The Ugly side of beauty.
I do wonder about the mental health of the sort of person that could think up contraptions like those.
Nicely captured David.
It's all a bit Dr. Who! :)
It's definitely a worry isn't it Alex? Mind you, this stuff was from about the '30s to the '50s I think - you know, the time of corsets and the like.
<looks at David critically for his lack of fashion history knowledge>. :(
Hey! I watched Hollywood movies from that era... I know there were corsets around then! :P
Yeh gads, there are women that were them now.....probably men too if you look had enough ;-P
Oh, when was the last time you watched a movie? :-P
Coco Chanel had changed the entire solhouette of the modern woman by the 20s.
Yes, my grandmother (b. 1906) may have worn a corset all her life (hopefully she took it off to sleep ;)) but thats an exception, not the rule.
Corsets went out by 1920 odd.
{researches...}
ha! "Between 1920 and 1928 corset sales declined by two thirds"
per www.fashion-era.com/flapper_fashion_1920s.htm
And lets not get started on the *ankles* that were showing from WWI! ;)
Really great capture! It's so surreal just to see the 'hands' reaching up.
So it is Rachel (you slipped that comment in while I was typing obviously)
Thanks Melissa :) Very surreal.
Ooh, so it's painful to be beautiful, huh? Another interesting find.
Sure looks like it Margot!
I saw the exhibition but I don't remember this -- well spotted. Makes for a great image.
Thanks Ian :) If you follow the exhibits along the wall anti-clockwise, it was the second one, I think, after you come through the door. There were leg braces, stirrups, etc and these intriguing gauntlets.