Collection of collections – by Meredith Jelbart

The lady’s hand muff in the folk museum is made of fruit bats. The fur is sleek and glittering jet black. Each body is arranged beside the next, head to toe, toe to head, so that the tiny faces form a decorative scallop at either edge of the thing, a little like crochet. Beside the glass case with the fruit bats is a dressmaker’s dummy displaying a long white dress of simple cotton, trimmed with blue ribbon. A handwritten card pinned to the bodice explains that this dress was worn by Miss Dianne Collins to the Wentworth debutant ball in 1936.