Time will never erase the accomplishment of this artist, who started from being an apprentice to being head milliner to Queen Frederica of Greece. Her gifts and ability to create were recognized by Otto Lucas and Aage Thaarup, milliner to ‘Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, of the British Commonwealth’. She chose a path that took her out of the limelight because she shunned publicity.
Born Magdalena Van der Westhuizen, she educated and brought up two children, Nicholas and Anne, far from her homeland of South Africa. Her historical background dated back to the Huguenots, who fled religious persecution in France between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Huguenots were Protestant Reformists that emerged as a breakaway group from the Roman Catholics. Many fled after the Massacre of St Bartholews Day when more than 70,000 were slain. Henry of Navarre showed no mercy on his victims as the dwindling numbers headed for Holland, Switzerland, America and to South Africa in 1687. Those that fled enriched their new domains with advanced knowledge of wine production as France had already become the leading country in the world. Amongst those that fled were her ancestors, De Beer, Van der Westhuizen, De Villiers and Botha’s. She was a grand daughter of Helmut De Beer, on whose family property diamonds were discovered; and niece of Louis Botha, the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa.
Madge made her entry into millinery during the era of the Second World War in Cape Town, the southern Capital. Queen Frederica, who was in exile, recognized her trademark as a hat designer and quickly she became a legend through the fashion conscious community in Cape Town. Beautiful as it was. Cape Town was still small compared to other fashion centres in the world. Three years later, she moved to Johannesburg to be closer to her sister Doreen, who had tuberculosis and after her death, Madge decided to make the move and immigrate to Australia, where her mother lived in the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie. Whilst in Johannesburg, Madge became the consultant and head milliner for ‘Lotte’s’. Mrs Wolfe, the owner raised Madge’s salary to 20 pounds Stirling per week, then acknowledged as the highest paid milliner in Africa.
The basement of 110A Barrack St became the site of her first workroom in Perth in May of 1949. She made an art-form of high fashion hats that made people clamber to be seen in her creations. She always praised Queen Elizabeth II, wife of King George VI, for her astute sense of feminine taste in wearing ostrich feather Gainsborough, picture hats. Madge came off the drawing boards as a self-invented artist in her trade. She perceived balance with elegance and this won her accolades and awards as Australia’s top designer. Going through the who’s who, her clients ranged from the Williamsons, to the Menzies and Governor-Generals and Premiers wives. It did not rest at that because later she designed ‘un-crushable’ hats that even the Premier of her own adopted State of Western Australia, Sir Charles Court wore with distinction.
Cloches, Sou westers, Gainsborough picture hats, turbans, and cocktail hats came with great ease; there was nothing she could not do when she had scissors and thimbles at her finger tips. Probably the greatest influence in design came from Marlene Dietrich, the German actress who wore Caroline Reboux designed berets to perfection. The natural beauty of Dietrich was an inspiration to design berets and we have chosen Madge Gracie’s ‘swirling 6 piece’ beret as the first of her memorable designs. Made in sheepskin it costs US$72 FOB Perth or Bali. In farmed baby crocodile; the costs increases to US$240 because of the demand for ‘a’ grade skins. This style is an absolute stunner. This design was sold to Harrod’s in London; she became the first Australian manufacturer to export millinery to this famous departmental store.
As a tribute to her extraordinary ability to design ‘elegant chapeaux’ a memorial fund has been established to aid and abet the indigenous people of Papua, Formerly known as Dutch New Guinea and later by the acronym of Irian Jaya. Sales from her millinery designs will go into the Trust of ‘Crusaders of Bali’ (COB Missions in Papua) to aid Christian welfare programs in southern Papua, where there is mortality rates as high as 30% of newly born babies, in one area, due to lack of satisfactory medical facilities. To some tribal people the broken neck of a bottle becomes a surgeons scalpel. There are many cases of great need amongst these impoverished people.
Payment, whether it be through credit card or telegraphic transfer should go direct to the Trust account of COB Missions in Papua. A Christian welfare program affiliated with the Protestant Church in Bali..
