Description

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My Life in the Ragtrade is the story of the famous Australian brand names, many developed from humble beginnings yet made in clothing factories employing thousands of people, and the grand retail stores and clothing shops that stocked those brands.

In My Life in the Ragtrade, author Fred Wilkinson takes us on a trip back in time to the days of Sidney Myer's beginnings in Bendigo, to Flinders Lane, Melbourne ('The Lane'), travelling salesmen and hawkers, and names and slogans which we've all but forgotten: Anthony Squires, Sutex, Keith Courtenay, Pelaco, Crestknit, Chesty Bond, Love Me in my Glo-Weave, Hard Yakka, He's so good he thinks he's King G, and more. Then there were the retailers - Winns, Farmer's, Anthony Hordern, Mark Foy and more.

Shopping back then was an adventure, it was a pleasure to be served and customers were treated like royalty.

Come, join Fred on a walk down memory lane through Australia's rich textile, fashion and retail history.

About the Author

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Fred Wilkinson spent more than forty years working in the Australian clothing trade. His father, George Wilkinson, spent more than fifty years, starting in the late 1800s when he joined Sidney Myer as one of Myer's first employees in Bendigo, Victoria, when Myer was still a hawker. Fred's own career in sales and sales management included time with leading Australian menswear companies such as Anthony Squires, Levi Strauss, Keith Courtenay Clothing, D & W Murray and Sutex. After retiring and seeing the demise of a great industry with local manufacturers and retailers forced to close, unable to compete with the minority of large conglomerates flooding their stores with imported merchandise from cheap labour countries in their chase for huge profit margins, Fred decided to document the industry before the Australian clothing trade's rich history was forgotten. My Life in the Ragtrade is the result.