Thelma Afford b. December 1908

Also known as Thelma May Thomas
  • Artist (Theatre / Film Designer),
  • Designer (Textile Artist / Fashion Designer)
Costume designer, performer, actor and fashion journalist with a practice from Broken Hill, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. She also designed costumes for early Australian TV drama. She later became the senior art mistress at Queenwood, a private girls' school, Mosman NSW. She is to considered to have introduced art subjects into South Australian schools.

costume designer and art teacher, was born at Broken Hill in December 1908, daughter of William James Thomas, an engineer, and Ethel, née Henderson. After attending Broken Hill High School, then boarding at Adelaide Presbyterian Girls’ College, she won a scholarship to the SA School of Arts and Crafts. Thelma, an associate member of the Society of Arts, was one of the first five teachers appointed to introduce art into South Australian high schools, teaching at both the School of Arts and Crafts and Adelaide High School. Thelma was deeply involved with the experimental Ab-Intra Studio Theatre in Adelaide, as both costume designer and performer.

Granted a year’s leave of absence from the Education Department, she spent 1934 in Melbourne studying with George Bell and working for Pierre Fornari. Fornari was costume designer for J.C. Williamson’s big musicals; he also had a salon in Collins Street.

As Fornari couldn’t draw it was my job to put his ideas and designs down on paper, not always an easy task. I did the sketches of the Cyril Ritchards-Madge Elliott production of “Roberta”. I learnt a great deal from him, both in actual designing and also in the appreciation of a necessary high standard of workmanship in the making of costumes.

Thelma also did some costume designing on her own behalf for productions at the Garrick and Tivoli theatres and for Melbourne’s centenary Pageant of Nations at the Town Hall. She returned to Adelaide and to teaching in 1935. The following year she was 'lent by the Education Department’ to design the costumes for the official celebrations of South Australia’s centenary. One of these events was the performance of Colonel Light, the Founder , the prize-winning play by Max Afford, whom Thelma was later to marry.

Thelma was invited to Sydney in 1937 in order to commence work on the 1938 Sydney sesquicentenary celebrations, thereby completing a hat-trick of such commissions: Melbourne (1934), Adelaide (1936) and Sydney (1938). The Sydney celebrations – the most lavish of all -took place on 26 January 1938.

In April 1938, Thelma Thomas married Max Afford at St Michael’s, Vaucluse. Both led busy professional lives in Sydney. Max wrote plays for radio and theatre and, later, screenplays; Thelma designed costumes for the Minerva Theatre (e.g. Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird 1940), Doris Fitton’s Independent Theatre (e.g. The Insect Play 1941), Ken Hall’s Cinesound Films (e.g. Mr Chedworth Steps Out 1939) and for Charles and Elsa Chauvel ( The Sons of Matthew 1947). As well, she designed period costumes for J.C. Williamson’s, was the resident designer for the Minerva Theatre until 1950, and wrote articles for the daily papers and weekly magazines on fashion and theatrical design. She designed the costumes for the very first live dramatic production on Australian television in 1957. In the 1960s Thelma turned again to teaching, being senior art mistress at Queenwood, a private girls’ school at Mosman, until she retired in 1978.

Thelma Afford’s costume designs are held by the Mortlock Library (SA), the Fryer Library (QU), the National Film and Sound Archive (ACT) and the Mitchell Library (NSW). Some of her designs for the 1938 Sydney sesquicentenary procession were exhibited at the Mitchell Library in 1990.

Writers:
Callaway, Anita
Date written:
1995
Last updated:
2011