Model-Yu dressmakers body moulding kit

Boxed dressform making kit, consisting of a large roll of gummed brown paper tape, two stockingette body slips, a bottle of shellac solution and a brush. Accompanied by booklet of illustrated instructions 'for the home dressmaker'. Box lid text reads 'A Model of you that is really you' / Model-Yu / Dress Form / Makes Dressmaking Easy'.

Manufactured in Melbourne in 1944, this kit was produced during the period of wartime austerity when dressmaker's bodyforms were scarce and new examples were not being made. At the same time, Australians were being actively encouraged to make or alter their own clothing. This kit involves making a cast of your body from the supplied brown paper stiffened by the shellac, over a body stocking, thus producing a form 'that is really you' according to the box lid. Mrs Marjory Fainges of Everton Park, Brisbane recalls her mother attempting to use this kit in 1945, resulting in a disastrous mess of brown paper tape and sticky shellac.