Laura Jocic

Laura is completing a PhD at the University of Melbourne, investigating the role of dress in colonial Australian society. From 2007 to 2012 Laura was a curator of Australian Fashion and Textiles at the National Gallery of Victoria where she curated the exhibitions Australian Made: 100 Years of Fashion and Linda Jackson Bush Couture. In 2016 Laura curated the exhibition Louis Kahan: Art, Theatre, Fashion held at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn and in 2019 she was consultant curator for a project at RMIT Design Archives interpreting the Bruce Slorach and Sarah Thorn fashion archives. Between 2005 and 2012 Laura lead five tours to Uzbekistan, with a focus on the textiles and ceramics of the region. Laura worked as a Registrar at the Auckland Art Gallery from 2001-2007 and was a co-founder of the Costume and Textiles Association of New Zealand, established in 2002. Prior to her museums and curatorial work, Laura was a costume maker and wardrobe co-ordinator, working on stage, film and television productions in Australia and London. In 1996 Laura received a Green Room Award for her work on the MTC's Shorts production.

Profile image: Uzbekistan, Suzani (detail), mid-20th century.


relevant publications

Laura Jocic (2020) "'Anything for Mere Show Would Be Worse Than Useless': Emigration, Dress and the Australian Colonies, 1820-1860." Chap. 9 In Dressing Global Bodies: The Political Power of Dress in World History, edited by Beverly Lemire and Giorgio Riello, 205-224. Routledge, Milton Park & New York.

Laura Jocic (2020) "Hand and Heart Shall Never Part: The Fashion Collaboration of Linda Jackson and David McDiarmid", Fashion Theory, 24:1, 131-140 (exhibition review).

Laura Jocic (2018) "The Lashmar Family, 1857-58: Emigration, Photography and Family Ties." Art Journal, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

Laura Jocic (2017) "Anna King's Dress: Trade and Society in Early Colonial Sydney." emaj (Melbourne Art Journal).

Laura Jocic (2016) "Minding her own business: colonial businesswomen in Sydney", Melbourne Historical Journal, 44:1, 139-142 (book review). 

Laura Jocic (2016) Louis Kahan: Art, Theatre, Fashion, Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn (exhibition catalogue).

Laura Jocic (2012) Linda Jackson: Bush Couture, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (exhibition catalogue).

Laura Jocic (2012) "Precocious style: the Fashion Design Council, 1983-1993", Art Journal, 51, 60-65National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

Laura Jocic (2010) Australian Made: 100 Years of Fashion, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (exhibition catalogue).