Laura Jocic
Laura is a curator and historian specialising in dress and textiles. She has worked with collections in Australia and New Zealand and was a co-founder of CTANZ, the Costume and Textile Association of New Zealand. Her areas of expertise in museums and galleries are curatorship and collections management. She has 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 she curated the exhibitions Australian Made: 100 Years of Fashion and Linda Jackson: Bush Couture and was a co-curator for Black in Fashion: Mourning to Night, Together Alone: Australian and New Zealand Fashion, and ManStyle: Men + Fashion. Laura completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne with a thesis that investigated the significance of dress in Australian colonial society. She is particularly interested in studying the materialities of surviving items of dress to elucidate the complex histories of garments and dress practices.
Between 2005 and 2012 Laura lead five tours to Uzbekistan, with a focus on the textiles and ceramics of the region. Prior to her museums and curatorial work, Laura was a costume maker and wardrobe co-ordinator, working on stage, film and television productions in Australia and London. In 1996 she was a co-recipient of a Green Room Award for Drama Design for the Melbourne Theatre Company’s Shorts program. Her performing arts and art history background lead her 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. Independent 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. Laura is an Associate Teaching Fellow in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Deakin University. She is an Honorary Associate at Museums Victoria and Treasurer for the Professional Historians Association (Vic & Tas). Her work has been published in various catalogues and journals and she enjoys sharing her research with a wide range of audiences through public lectures and forums.
Profile image: Uzbekistan, Suzani (detail), mid-20th century.
relevant publications
Laura Jocic (2025) “Bound for Australia: Anne Trotter’s needlework specimen book, 1840”, PRISM, Vol.1, 48-65 https://museumsvictoria.com.au/media/s23nedzl/prism_journal_volume1_2025_jocic.pdf
Laura Jocic (2025) “Rowell, Kenneth Leslie (1920-1999): artist and stage designer”, National Centre of Biography, Australian Dictionary of Biography. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rowell-kenneth-leslie-34278
Laura Jocic (2020) "'Anything for Mere Show Would Be Worse Than Useless': Emigration, Dress and the Australian Colonies, 1820-1860." Chap. 9 In Dressing Global Bodies: The Political Power of Dress in World History, edited by Beverly Lemire and Giorgio Riello, 205-224. Routledge, Milton Park & New York.
Laura Jocic (2020) "Hand and Heart Shall Never Part: The Fashion Collaboration of Linda Jackson and David McDiarmid", Fashion Theory, 24:1, 131-140 (exhibition review).
Laura Jocic (2018) "The Lashmar Family, 1857-58: Emigration, Photography and Family Ties." Art Journal, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Laura Jocic (2017) "Anna King's Dress: Trade and Society in Early Colonial Sydney." emaj (Melbourne Art Journal).
Laura Jocic (2016) "Minding her own business: colonial businesswomen in Sydney", Melbourne Historical Journal, 44:1, 139-142 (book review).
Laura Jocic (2016) Louis Kahan: Art, Theatre, Fashion, Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn (exhibition catalogue).
Laura Jocic (2012) Linda Jackson: Bush Couture, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (exhibition catalogue).
Laura Jocic (2012) "Precocious style: the Fashion Design Council, 1983-1993", Art Journal, 51, 60-65, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Laura Jocic (2010) Australian Made: 100 Years of Fashion, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (exhibition catalogue).