Johanna Wilhelmine Weigel, née Astmann (11 February 1847 – 10 January 1940), known professionally as Madame Weigel, was a designer and publisher of dressmaking patterns in Australia.

Biography

Weigel was born on 11 February 1847 in Posen,

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

(present-day

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

, Poland). She was the second of five children born to August Astmann and his wife Emilie, née Sachs. She left for New York as a young girl, and became a designer for

McCall's ''McCall's'' was a monthly United States, American women's magazine, published by the McCall Corporation, that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. The publication ...

Patterns, where she met and married engineer Oscar Weigel (c. 1844Application for naturalisation: Oscar August Louis Robert Carl Weigel; National Archives online, accessed 6 March 2019. – 7 February 1915), born in Brunswick, Germany. They left for Australia aboard ''Mysore'', arriving in Melbourne on 4 March 1877. According to Weigel, she and her husband were in Australia on an extended honeymoon when she started cutting paper patterns for Melbourne friends who admired her dress sense. Within a year, with the help of a few staff in a small house in Fitzroy, The owner and editor of ''Table Talk'', Maurice Brodsky, a close contemporary of Mme Weigel, was also born in Poland. she was producing patterns and marketing them

mail-order Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as: * Sending an order form in the mail * Placing an order by telephone call ...

as "American Paper Cut Patterns" from premises in Eastern Arcade, Melbourne, and soliciting for "agents everywhere". In 1880 she began publishing a monthly "Weigel's Journal of Fashions", edited by her accountant, Mrs Thompson, touted as the first to be all-Australian in content, production and printing, combining general information, stories and information about merchandise, with illustrated descriptions of the latest English and American fashions, adapted for Colonial conditions. Later that year the magazine was also being published in Sydney, and she had a retail establishment at 313

Pitt Street Pitt Street is a major street in the Sydney central business district in New South Wales, Australia. The street runs through the entire city centre from Circular Quay in the north to Waterloo, although today's street is in two disjointed sect ...

. Around 1885 she built offices and a factory at 229 Lennox Street (the Rowena Street corner),

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a city in the United States * Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...

where they printed the tissue-paper patterns on their own machines. Her husband Oscar's magazine production team adopted

photoengraving Photoengraving is a process that uses a light-sensitive photoresist applied to the surface to be engraved to create a mask that protects some areas during a subsequent operation which etches, dissolves, or otherwise removes some or all of the ma ...

for Phil Ashley's artwork and installed a

monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...

press. A free pattern was included with each issue. In 1893 Oscar was

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...

, hence also was Johanna. Weigel retired from active involvement in the business sometime around 1910, and spent much of her time in world travel. Oscar died in 1915 in Los Angeles, where the couple had gone either on business or on a sentimental journey. By this time, the business was selling over a million patterns a year. After Ocar's death, Johanna returned to Melbourne, and lived for some time in St Kilda. In 1926 Madame Weigel Pty. Ltd., was founded 1926 with partners Weigel, Charles Reynolds (a machinist who had been with Weigel from the early days), and George Humphries, with a capital of £10,000. She died in 1940 at her suite in the Oriental Hotel, Collins Street, the Melbourne address of Johanna and her companion Sarah Neilson for the last twelve years of her life. Her estate, valued at £71,844 was divided between five Melbourne hospitals, after her employees had been looked after, and with £20,000 set aside to fund the Oscar Weigel Exhibitions (i.e. scholarship) for engineering students at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

References

External links

ABC Landline report on Weigel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weigel, Johanna 1847 births 1940 deaths Australian women fashion designers Australian fashion designers Australian women in business People from Poznań Emigrants from the Kingdom of Prussia Immigrants to the United States Immigrants to colonial Australia German women fashion designers

Biography

References

Further reading

External links