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Summary:: This pair of woollen male bathing trunks was made by Italian migrant Edda Azzola on the family knitting machine in Italy in the 1950s. Edda was a domestic knitting machinist by trade and made two pairs of bathing trunks for her husband and a pair of bathers for herself for them to take to Australia. Edda wore her bathers only a couple of times.

Edda Azzola, nee Pugnetti, was born in 1927 in Moggio Udinese in the Friuli region, northern Italy and the family moved to nearby Pontebba four years later. After their early schooling, Edda and her two sisters worked as knitting machinists from the family home, at which time they also produced their trousseaux which was stored by their mother in a chest. She married Angelo Azzola, a young man from her village. Searching for change, adventure and a better life, Edda persuaded her husband to migrate to Australia in 1954 and Edda followed a year later in 1955. Her glory box followed her later. They lived in Carlton and Fitzroy in inner Melbourne during the early years and Edda purchased an Italian knitting machine from another Italian migrant woman in Melbourne and worked as a textile factory outworker for about 20 years.
Description:: Dark blue machine knitted mens' bathing trunks.
Acquisition Information:: Donation from Mrs Edda Azzola, 2007

Discipline:	History
Dimensions:	302 mm (Height), 350 mm (Width)

Tagged with:	immigration, textile industry, italian communities, italian immigration, leisure activities, swimwear
Themes this item is part of:	Edda Azzola, Italian Migrant & Textile Worker, 1955, Clothing & Textiles Collection, Leisure Collection, Migration Collection
Primary Classification:	CLOTHING
Secondary Classification:	Male
Tertiary Classification:	swimwear
Maker:	Mrs Edda Azzola, Friuli, Italy, early 1950s
User:	Mr Angelo Azzola, Carlton North, Victoria, Australia, late 1950s
User:	Mr Angelo Azzola, Fitzroy North, Victoria, Australia, late 1950s
References:	'Glory Boxes: Femininity, Domestic Consumption and Material Culture in Australia, 1930-1960', Moya McFadzean, phd thesis, 2009