What is "Australian" Fashion Photography? -- A Dilemma.

Can we point to anything distinctive about Australian fashion photographs during the mid-twentieth century? This article traces discourses of both similarity and difference from European styles that permeated discussion of fashionable dress and comportment in Australia at the time. It shows there is little to gain from unraveling what characterizes "overseas" and what characterizes "local," especially in image making. Indeed, we can scarcely find stylistic distinctiveness in photographs. What emerges is a seemingly contradictory network of opinions, texts, images, and related practices, complicating our understanding of local fashion photography and its relationship to the magazine industry. In the period under consideration, a coherent or identifiable style does not constitute fashionable attire and its representation in Australia other than at times a sense of the understated. It is in the ebb and flow of ideas, motifs, and references, even subtle urban variations, that we can situate the essence of Australian photography and perhaps that of Australian style as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]