Prue Acton facts for kids
Prue Acton, OBE (born 26 April 1943) is a famous Australian fashion designer. During the 1960s, many people called her "Australia's golden girl of fashion" because of her amazing designs.
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Early Life and Education
Prudence Leigh Acton was born in Benalla, Victoria. She went to Firbank Anglican Girls' Grammar School in Melbourne.
From 1958 to 1962, Prue studied art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She earned a special diploma in Printed Textiles. This means she learned how to design patterns for fabrics.
Starting a Fashion Business
In 1963, Prue Acton started her very own fashion design business. It was located in Flinders Lane, Melbourne. She was only 20 years old when she began.
By the time she was 21, her business was huge! She was creating about 350 new designs every year. She also sold around 1,000 dresses each week. Her clothes were sold in 80 different shops across Australia and New Zealand.
As her fashion company grew, Prue Acton also started making her own line of cosmetics. These makeup products were designed to go perfectly with her clothing styles.
Showing Designs in New York
In 1967, Prue Acton made history. She became the first Australian female designer to show her clothing collection in New York. This was a very big deal for Australian fashion.
By 1982, her designs were incredibly popular around the world. Her clothes were sold in Australia, Japan, the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Other companies also made her designs under special agreements in America, Japan, and Germany. Her worldwide sales were estimated to be $11 million!
Designing Olympic Uniforms
Prue Acton also had the honor of designing the uniforms for Australian Olympic athletes. She created the uniforms for three different Winter and Summer Olympic Games:
- 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, USA
- 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, USA
- 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea
From Fashion to Painting
Prue Acton originally wanted to be a painter, not a fashion designer. She said, "At 15 I went to RMIT; I was one of the youngest ever to go to RMIT." While studying art, she made her own clothes and clothes for friends to earn money. This is how her fashion career began.
After graduating, she started her business by working on clothing samples. Early in her career, she even wrote a fashion column for a magazine called Go-Set.
In the 1980s, Prue Acton decided to go back to her first love: painting. She explained that fashion became "all about making money," and she was more interested in art. She felt that painting and fashion design were similar. She said, "I don't think it makes any difference whether I'm painting or I'm a designer, it's about the art of what we do, of how the parts come together."
She took art classes at Swinburne College. She also studied painting with famous artists like Clifton Pugh and Mervyn Moriarty. Starting in 1989, Prue Acton held art exhibitions with Clifton Pugh and other artists from a group called the Dunmoochin Artists.
Awards and Recognition
Prue Acton has received many awards for her work in fashion:
- Australian Wool Board Wool Fashion Awards: 1965, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971
- David Jones Awards for Fashion Excellence: 1971, 1972, 1978
- FIA (Fashion Industry of Australia) Lyrebird Awards: 1971, 1973 (Hall of Fame), 1978, 1980
In 1982, she was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire). This is a special honor given by the British government. She also won the Australian Fashion Awards in 1985 and 1987.
In 2005, Prue Acton was honored on a special Australian postage stamp. She was featured alongside other well-known Australian fashion designers. These included Collette Dinnigan, Akira Isogawa, Joe Saba, Carla Zampatti, and Jenny Bannister.
