DrLaura Jocic

I am a curator and cultural historian specialising in dress and textiles and material culture. I have worked in collections in Australia and New Zealand and was a co-founder of CTANZ, the Costume and Textile Association of New Zealand. My areas of expertise in museums and galleries are curatorship and collections management. I have worked as a Registrar at the Auckland Art Gallery and was a Curator of Australian Fashion and Textiles at the National Gallery of Victoria where I curated the exhibitions Australian Made: 100 Years of Fashion and Linda Jackson: Bush Couture. In 2023 I completed my PhD at the University of Melbourne with a thesis that investigated the significance of dress in Australian colonial society. I am particularly interested in studying the materialities of surviving items of dress to elucidate the complex histories of garments and dress practices.

I have previously worked as a costumier in film and television, and was a co-recipient of a Green Room Award for Drama Design in 1996 for the Melbourne Theatre Company’s Shorts program. My performing arts and art history background lead me to investigate the collecting of Australian theatrical costume which resulted in the exhibitions Dress Rehearsal at the Bendigo Art Gallery and Louis Kahan: Art, Theatre, Fashion at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn. Recent projects have been interpreting the archives of designers Sara Thorn and Bruce Slorach for RMIT Design Archives and conducting a significance assessment of the Henty Costume Collection at Kew Historical Society. I am an Honorary Associate at Museums Victoria and Treasurer of the Professional Historians Association (Vic & Tas). My work has been published in various catalogues and journals and I enjoy sharing my research with a wide range of audiences through public lectures and forums. In 2026 I receieved the La Trobe Society Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria to undertake a research project into the letters and artworks of Sarah and Richard Bunbury who arrived in Melbourne in 1841.