Moomba headpiece – Butterflies c1980s

maker unknown

Registration number

1091571

Artist/maker

maker unknown

Title

Moomba headpiece – Butterflies

Production date

c1980s

Medium

synthetic gold mesh, cloth, plastic butterflies

Dimensions (H x W x D)

dimensions variable

Credit line

City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection

Keywords

Moomba

Summary

Since 1955, Moomba has been a fixture on Melbourne's social calendar, taking place each Labour Day weekend. The parade along the city's central artery – often a site for shared social expression – has been key to the festival's enduring popularity. In the early years, extravagant floats and participants showcased the city's commercial interests and wealth, also revealing the festival's roots. But the procession soon shifted gear, with colourful floats and costumed participants also representing cultural, social and community groups. The Art and Heritage Collection holds an assortment of thoroughly whacky headdresses – anything from a seaside, fruit or Black Swan theme to Uluru, the Westgate Bridge or a paddle steamer. Each would have had its moment in the sun, perched upon a knowing head during a Moomba parade. Trawling through albums of photographs documenting the parade has not been helpful in pinning most to a specific year, though we believe these sometimes makeshift, always creative headdresses were most likely made between 1990 and recent years. The folds of this gold-mesh fabric headpiece are ornamented with orange cloth butterflies.