It’s 1961. Girls are risking arrest to wear bikinis on the beach. Women are faking marriage certificates to get the pill. In the ladieswear department of Goodes it’s all hats, gloves and foundation garments, but for the women who serve behind the counter, the sixties are about to start swinging. The revolution in society and fashion will divide the Ladies in Black and threaten each of their worlds. 

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Magda, the elegant doyenne of Model Gowns, has a beautiful dream. Her own boutique to nurture new designers and bring original Australian fashion to working women and newly liberated girls. However, a woman can’t take a mortgage or sign a lease without her husband’s signature and Magda’s Stefan makes a risky investment that crushes her dream. Trapped at Goodes, Magda must fight her way back from the bottom to bring her vision to life. 

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Mrs Ambrose, just arrived from Harrods, is appalled by Australians’ rough and ready approach to customer service. Her clients adore her, and she gives them exactly what they want: conservative, traditional, exclusive. Steely and combative, she has not travelled across the world to throw away a life-time of experience by thrusting the ladies of Sydney into designs they don’t want to wear. Mrs Ambrose employs every trick to build her empire within the store, but her own secrets could bring her down.  

Fay is blissfully happy as the new Mrs Janosi, despite Rudi’s excessive work hours and suggestions of ‘improving’ books, operas and symphonies. His ambitious attempt at expansion leave the newlyweds and Magda and Stefan submerged in debt. Fay must put aside plans to start a family and commit to Goodes where she finds herself in the middle of the battle between the conservative old guard and a treacherous leap into risky new fashions. Feeling betrayed by Rudi, she must decide between a life of uncertainty and the simplicity of returning to the way things were. 

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Lisa is taking the first steps towards her ‘big life’ at university when a sudden tragedy puts her hopes on hold. Forced back to Goodes by financial stress Lisa has difficult choices between work and study, ambition and education, family loyalty and the temptations of the libertarians and their world of university, drinking, sex and philosophical debate. Lisa throws herself into romance, friendship and adventure with a passionate naïveté that could tip her into disaster. 

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A career in fashion seems an impossible dream for a Lebanese girl from Redfern, but once hired at Goodes Angela is the perfect addition to ladieswear at Goodes. However, the lies she has told to get herself hired run deep and dangerous. As she thrives within the Ladies in Black family, everyone’s love and loyalty will be put to the test. 

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Based on the world and characters of Madeleine St John’s beloved novel, and picking up six months after the events of Bruce Beresford’s film, Ladies in Black dives into the fashion, romance, drama and disappointment of women’s lives at a time of momentous transformation.