This 1948 photo shows the La Mode Corset Industries building on Victoria Street Fitzroy. It’s now the Southern School of Natural Therapies.
Courtesy of Fitzroy local history photograph collection / ID: 15233 / photographer: unknown / copyright: expired – image is in the public domain / c1948
21 January 2010 at 10:30 am
The building with the white van out the front is also Sneaker Freaker, and a number of other businesses on the ground level. The upper levels are apartments.
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1 June 2010 at 3:05 pm
Wow, that little tree really has done well!
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28 January 2013 at 8:46 am
It’s great to see that these historic factories have been retained and adaptively reused in Fitzroy. Unfortunately, another classic corset making factory in the suburb is about to be demolished, along with a rare, heritage listed Edwardian / Bungalow style house dating to c. 1915 at 221 Moor St. Fitzroy. The factory, at 250 Gore St. was the birth place of Dowd Corsets (now the iconic Australian ‘Hickory’ brand), and will be demolished to make way for a 7 storey apartment building, along with one of the last Ackman’s emporium buildings in Fitzroy, next to the Dowd building on Hodgson St. Fitzroy. Ackman’s remaining buildings include the well known Woolworths facade on Smith St., the red brick factory on the corner of Hargreaves and St. David St. (which is almost identical to the one VCAT has just approved for destruction on Hodgson St.), and the the Ackman’s garage one the corner of Hodgson and Gore St. Also significant is the fact that the Ackman’s building has only just been ‘discovered’ as one of the last of this group, and was previously unidentified in council heritage studies, and that it was designed in the 1920s by well known Melbourne architects, Gawler and Drummond, who did all of Ackman’s 20th century buildings, as well as the well recognised ‘Social Settlement’ building at St. Marks church around the corner on George St. Fitzroy. It seems there is no longer the respect for the past in Yarra that local and state authorities should have – the council’s own heritage officer claimed that there was no longer anything of heritage significance left of the Ackman’s building – where in reality, all it needed was some render and paint stripped off to reveal the red brick, and it’s original windows restored.
To see a picture of the old buildings, see this link: http://www.picturevictoria.vic.gov.au/site/yarra_melbourne/Fitzroy/15236.html
For more info, go to: http://www.walkingmelbourne.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7072
And to see the new development, approved by VCAT, go to:
http://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/planning–building/Major-developments/221-moor-street-and-250-gore-street-fitzroy/
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28 January 2013 at 11:29 am
Thanks for this information – I will do a post on the Gore St building before it disappears…
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