The 'Flower Girl' costumes features a vividly hand-painted silk dress and a white silk gown. The costume featured in the Flag Handover segment of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games Closing Ceremony.

The costume is constructed in silk twill and has been painted using silk dyes. The Flower Girl costumes were worn by a girls from the NSW Performing Arts Unit. The gown was designed by Karin Thorn, the fabric was painted by Victoria Feitscher and manufactured in Sydney by freelance costume makers.

The Flag Handover Ceremony introduced the world to the next Olympic host: Sydney, Australia. There was a formal and an informal part of the Flag Handover Ceremony. The formal section saw the Flag literally 'handed over' to the Mayor of Sydney Frank Sartor. The informal or cultural display introduced the world to a number of the known (and some of the lesser known) Australian cultural icons.

Australia's seven minute cultural display began with the sound of a solo didgeridoo being played on a central raised ochre platform in the centre of the stadium. It's sound called to life a number of indigenous dancers who performed the 'kangaroo' dance. At the same time, groups of boys on BMX bikes with inflatable kangaroos on their backs entered the stadium. Female indigenous dancers bring to life the brightly painted flower girls who shed their virginal white silk robes to reveal there colourful dresses as they dance around giant inflatable waratahs. Hundreds of 'lifesavers' in glittering lurex swimsuits and caps and carrying glittering flags representing the waves and the Australian sea side weave though the picture. Finally giant white tubes are released to form a likeness of the Sydney Opera House as fireworks decorate the sky.

The Australian public displayed a very mixed response to the symbols and cultural icons on offer to the world in the Flag Handover Ceremony. It opened a stimulating and sometimes intense debate about the way in which Australians thought Australia and Australians should be portrayed on a world stage.

The reaction to Birch's Opening Ceremony just four years later was much more positive, even though it may be said to have contained the same mix of irreverence, wit and cultural sensitivity.

In 1995 Ric Birch sent out an invitation to the world's designers to come up with a seven minute 'show' which would communicate to the world that the next Olympics would be held in Sydney, Australia.

Although many groups both in Australia and from the world sent in ideas, Birch chose a group of NIDA design students and staff to carry through their initial ideas. He teamed the NIDA staff and students with director and choreographer Stephen Page and a team of experts in the field of inflatable costumes and props. The core design group spent the next 6 months developing and refining their ideas for the ceremony.

Ceremonies Costume Workshop artist: Victoria Feitscher.

Worn by young girls from the NSW Performing Arts Unit.

Presented to the Powerhouse Museum by the Olympic Coordination Authority, on behalf of the NSW Government

Performance costumes (5), 'Flower Girl', fabric, designed by Karin Thorn, made by Ceremonies Costume Workshop, used in the Closing Ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, Atlanta 1996

Flower girl costumes, four hand painted sleeveless silk twill dresses and one white silk twill gown which was worn over one of the dresses. The dresses are made up of six panels of fabric. They are ankle length with a flared skirt. Each dress has been hand dyed with different colours that blend into one another. One or two colours generally dominate on each dress. Two of the dresses are predominantly yellow and orange, one predominantly pink and one is predominantly green and red. The white silk gown has an a-line skirt and is split at the front from the hem of the skirt to the waist.

Made: Ceremonies Costume Workshop; ; 1996

Designed: Thorn, Karin; ; 1996

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1996