https://www.nfsa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-07/Cane%20Toads%20Mega%20Menu%201_1000x745.jpg
Side fastening wrap-on
![A woman wearing a pink foundation garment stands amidst art deco design elements suggesting clouds and lightening. The text reads 'side fastening wrap-on [corset] for medium average figures'.](/sites/default/files/styles/asset_full_page/public/09-2017/759903.jpg?itok=xUYPK05c "Side fastening wrap-on")
https://www.nfsa.gov.au/sites/default/files/09-2017/759903.jpg
Title:
Side fastening wrap-on
NFSA ID
759903
Year
1930
Like all successful advertising this glass slide image sells much more than just the product - Berlei's 'side fastening wrap-on [corset] for medium average figures'. We are being sold the ideas of beauty, strength, virtue, excitement (she's got her feet in the clouds!) and design, and how all of these ideals come together in the Berlei brand.
The design of the background has strong art deco references. There is something 'Wonder Woman' about the image with the model standing straight and proud - clouds and angular shapes emanating from her. The character of Wonder Woman didn't appear in DC Comics until 1941, so she is ahead of her time. The glass slide would have been used either as an advertisement in a cinema setting or as part of the educational training package for Berlei fitters.
Notes by Beth Taylor
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.