Beril Jents facts for kids

Beril Jents (born 1918, died June 8, 2013) was a very famous Australian fashion designer. People called her "Australia’s first queen of haute couture". This term means very fancy, custom-made fashion. Beril Jents was especially good at designing clothes for evening parties and weddings.

During her long career, from the 1930s to the 1980s, she was featured in many newspapers and advertisements. Rich and creative people, mostly from Sydney and Brisbane, loved her designs. Even international stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Gaynor, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Vivien Leigh, Eartha Kitt, Bo Derek, and Winifred Atwell wore her clothes.

Beril Jents was special because she didn't just copy European styles. In the 1940s and 1950s, she created her own unique designs. Other famous designers, like Norman Hartnell, recognized her talent.

Some of her most famous collections were the "Potato Sack" in 1947 and the "Pan Am" collection in 1948. She also designed cool peg-bottom trousers, inspired by the "Zoot Suit" style.

Today, you can see Beril Jents' work in museums. The Powerhouse Museum and the National Gallery of Victoria have collected her designs. She passed away on June 8, 2013, at the age of 95.

Beril Jents' Journey in Fashion

Beril Jents was born in Sydney in 1918. Her family was not rich. She learned to sew by helping her mother, Alice Strudwick, who was a dressmaker. Her mother also taught her a lot about different fabrics. Even though she started from a simple background, she soon became a designer for high society.

After helping her mother, Beril worked as a trainee artist. Then, she became an apprentice for Madame Gallet, a French dressmaker in Sydney. Here, she learned a special skill: how to cut fabric without using a pattern! Madame Gallet closed her business in 1934 and went back to France.

Starting Her Own Business

When she was just 16 years old, Beril Jents opened her own design studio. It was first in Charing Cross, Waverley, Sydney. Later, she moved it to Bondi Junction. For ten years, she made custom-fit clothes for special clients. People especially admired how she designed and made sleeves for jackets.

In 1944, her business officially registered. She moved her studio to King's Cross, which was a very artistic and lively area at the time.

Beril Jents even worked with famous actors like Noël Coward and Sir Robert Helpmann to create their costumes.

Becoming a Top Designer

When she was 32, Beril opened a new, bigger salon in the St James building in Sydney's city center.

In 1952, she was called the "most important Australian Fashion Designer." She was invited to represent Australia at a big international fashion show in New York City. Famous designers like Norman Hartnell (from England) and Givenchy (from France) were also there. This shows how highly respected Beril Jents was.

Beril Jents didn't need to advertise her work. People heard about her through word-of-mouth recommendations. The media loved her and wrote about her often. They were the ones who gave her the title "Australia’s Queen of Haute Couture." In 1972, a fashion journalist named Glenys Bell said Beril was "the only high-fashion designer left in Australia."

She worked for six decades, finally retiring in 1986.

Her Creative Designs

Beril Jents took ideas from European and Parisian fashion. But she changed them to fit the Australian way of life, which she said was "much simpler." She wanted her modern clothes to feel timeless, so younger customers loved them.

Hollywood Glamour and Inspiration

In the 1930s, Beril was inspired by the amazing glamour of Hollywood movies and their stars. The costumes that Adrian designed for the 1932 film Letty Lynton were very important to her. One white dress with big puffed sleeves was so popular that over 500,000 copies were sold in the U.S. Beril Jents made her own version of this dress in Australia. She said it made her want to "create glamorous clothes" in the future.

Beril also liked to drape fabric directly on a mannequin or on a person's body. She was inspired by the Parisian designer Madame Gres, who used similar techniques.

The Potato Sack Collection (1947)

This collection was an early example of being eco-friendly in high fashion. Beril Jents bought large hessian potato sacks from a local grocery store. She would soak them in her bath and boil them to make them soft. She said the fabric felt "like very coarse linen." Then, she sewed these sacks into A-line skirts. She decorated them with beads and straw designs.

Some experts compare this to Coco Chanel, who used simple jersey fabric for her designs after World War I.

A very important fashion buyer named Sheila Scotter bought the entire "Potato Sack" collection. She was known for her excellent taste and later became the editor-in-chief of Vogue Australia.

The Pan Am Collection (1948)

This collection was designed especially for air travel with Pan American Airlines. Beril Jents worked with Pan Am to create light and easy-to-wear travel clothes. This was for the launch of their new Strato-Clipper airplane. The collection was all black and white. It was shown in the world's first-ever fashion show held on an airplane!

Who Wore Her Designs?

Beril Jents dressed many important people:

• Mary Horden: She was the fashion editor for Australian Woman's Weekly from 1946 to 1957. Beril Jents once made a copy of a Dior design for Mrs. Horden. This "Peg skirt" made Beril Jents very famous.
• Sydney socialites: These were well-known people in Sydney's high society, like Betty McInerney and Molly McSweeny.
• Famous international stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Gaynor, Dame Margot Fonteyn, and Winifred Atwell.