For more than fourty years, Beryl Jents ahs been acknowledged as Australia’s “Queen of haute Couture”.
From humble beginnings, as an ordinary Bondi Girl, she had the determination to reach the top. She made her first dress at nine, and at just sixteen opened her first shop.
Beril’s extraordinary talent soon attracted everyone around her, from hard-working street girls through to nobility. There were theatre stars and socialites , beautiful women from the racing world, wives and girlfriends of gangland bosses, and even some of Australia’s most notorious prostitutes.
Having made her name while still in her teens, Beril found herself being courted by the establishment – the Horderns, the Fairfaxes, the Maccarthur-Onslows and many, many more.
As her fame spread, her clientele included great international stars like Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Eartha Kitt, Winfred Atwell and Bo Derek, to name but a few.
A designer of great creativity, she masterminded costumes for major stage productions, working with such theatre luminaries as Robert Morley and Sir Robert Helpmann.
Her own fashion parades are legendary: huge, elaborate productions with big music and dance numbers on a scale not seen in this country before – or since.
Then at the pinnacle of her success, Beril lost everything – her workrooms, her business, her home.
But in her typical fashion, Beril Jents has bounced back – her book Little Ol’ Beryl From Bondi tells her life story in a thoroughly entertaining way.
Insert from book.
Beril jents was born Beryl Strudwick. On her first marriage, she became Beryl Gent, but shortly after changed her name to Beril (with an I) and Jents (with a ‘J” and an ‘s’ on the end), for aesthetic reasons. Through remarried, to Peter Carey she retains the name Beril Jents professionally.
