Found Online: "The Australian Dress Register".

Oh my!  I just stumbled across The Australian Dress Register.  And what a gem of a website it is!

Day dress made by David Jones, 1890s

I think the best way of describing this site is to simply quote what it has to say about itself:

What is the Australian Dress Register?
The Australian Dress Register is a collaborative, online project about dress with Australian provenance. This includes men's, women's and children's clothing ranging from the special occasion to the everyday. Museums and private collectors are encouraged to research their garments and share the stories and photographs while the information is still available and within living memory. The Register encourages people to consider their collections very broadly and share what they know about members of their community, what they wore and life in the past. This provides access to a world wide audience while keeping their garments in their relevant location.

Paula Stafford bikini, 1950s

The website is owned by the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences in Sydney.  It collates information about clothing held by small museums and private collectors throughout Australia.  The contents of these collections are far, far wider than merely fashionable dress.  The Australian Dress Register contains examples of clothing worn by men, women and children, including uniforms and work wear,  underwear and ethnic dress.  They date back to the early years of European settlement in Australia into the 21st century.

The owners of the garments are required to provide photographs and encouraged to provide as much information about them as they can.  This can include biographical details of the original wearers, and the context in which the clothes were worn.   It can also include details of the construction of the garments, where they were made, what they were made of, whether they were sewn by hand or machine, and how they were fastened.

In other words, this site is far more than a list of museum holdings with pretty photographs attached.  Taken together, each item on the register provides the raw material for a social history of costume in Australia.  It's obviously still a work in progress: not every collector in Australia has participated, and for those who have, researching and writing-up each item in their collection must be a time-consuming task.  However, I hope and expect this register will grow steadily in years to come.