Lorinda Cramer

Lorinda Cramer is a postdoctoral researcher at the Australian Catholic University, where she works on the ARC Discovery project ‘Men’s Dress in Twentieth-Century Australia: Masculinity, Fashion, Social Change’. Her research into dress, fashion and textile history is underpinned by material culture and inspired by her work for more than a decade as a museum curator and collection manager. Her PhD explored the lives of Victoria's female gold-rush migrants through their needlework: from the clothes they sewed for themselves and their families to the relentless demands of daily mending and darning. This research was published by Bloomsbury in 2020 as Needlework and Women’s Identity in Colonial Australia.

Profile image: ‘Trousers of suit [detail], mottled brown wool, worn by Setsutaro Hasegawa’, 1930s–1940s. Copyright Museums Victoria / CC BY: https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/1591894

Relevant Publications

Lorinda Cramer, ‘The politics of the necktie – “colonial noose”, masculine marker or silk status symbol?’, The Conversation, 16 February 2021.

Lorinda Cramer, ‘Dressed for success – as workers return to the office, men might finally shed their suits and ties’, The Conversation, 27 January 2021.

Lorinda Cramer, ‘Relaxed bodies and comfortable clothes: Reframing masculinity in post-war Australia’, Gender & History (published online 30 December 2020). DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.12515. 

Lorinda Cramer, ‘Friday essay: The singlet – a short history of an Australian icon’, The Conversation, 4 December 2020.

Lorinda Cramer, ‘Rethinking men’s dress through material sources: The case study of a singlet’, Australian Historical Studies (published online 30 June 2020). DOI: 10.1080/1031461X.2020.1772328. 

Lorinda Cramer, ‘“Busy, without thimbles, at the needlework”: Men’s sewing and masculinity on the Victorian Goldfields, 1851–1861’, Journal of Victorian Culture 25.2 (2020): 153–170. DOI: org/10.1093/jvcult/vcz063. 

Lorinda Cramer, Needlework and Women’s Identity in Colonial Australia (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). 

Lorinda Cramer, ‘Diggers’ dress and identity on the Victorian goldfields, Australia, 1851–1870’, Fashion Theory 22.1 (2018): 85–108. DOI:10.1080/1362704X.2016.1266833. 

Lorinda Cramer, ‘Making “everything they want but boots”: Clothing children in Victoria, Australia, 1840-1870’, Costume 51.2 (2017): 190–209. DOI: 10.3366/cost.2017.0024. 

Lorinda Cramer, ‘Making a home in gold-rush Victoria: Plain sewing and the genteel woman’, Australian Historical Studies 48.2 (2017): 213–226. DOI:10.1080/1031461X.2017.1293705. 

Lorinda Cramer, ‘Keeping up appearances: Genteel women, dress and refurbishing in gold-rush Victoria, Australia, 1851–1870’, Textile: Cloth and Culture 15.1 (2017): 48–57. DOI:10.1080/14759756.2016.1209876.