1953 article about former banana growers

This 1953 article makes interesting reading.

Former Banana Growers Make Smart Shell Jewellery
By Joyce Burns Glen
The Christian Science Monitor
Friday 19th June 1953
Women Today

Cairns, Queensland

“Quite fabulously beautiful” is how a Hollywood buyer described the shell jewellery made by Diana and Max Bowden at Port Douglas in North Queensland.

The shell creations made by this enterprising couple have met with equal enthusiasm throughout Australia, in Paris, New York, and London, for the designers are not producing the traditional and somewhat hackneyed shell jewellery, but fashionable dress accessories, with an accent on the fashionable.

Diana and Max are both English and migrated to Queensland in 1946 to grow bananas. When a flood ruined their plantation they decided to live in tropical Port Douglas on the Great Barrier Reef, 50 miles north of Cairns.

They Explore Coral Reefs

Having pottered about the reef and seen shells in their natural setting- surrounded by coral and all the incredible marine life with its colour and unusual design- they thought of the pieces of exotic costume jewellery made from shells that they had seen in Paris and London. Such pieces were fairly rare and expensive. Here on the Barrier Reef, they felt, was the chance of fashioning an infinite variety of pieces and at reasonable prices.

So they converted a shed in their garden into a workroom and hung up a sign, “Diana Bowden- Exotic Shell Jewellery.”They soon found that there was more to shell collecting than just picking shells up off the beach. Nearly all the shells used in their craft are gathered alive. A dead shell has little value, as it is colourless, brittle, and has no natural polish, and in the case of nacreous shells, will not stand up to processing.

They have had to study the widely different habits of the various species of shells and learn how to track them down. From the collecting angle, shells may be divided into three categories: those found in sand, those that live among rocks, and the coral-reef shells. The seasons, tides and weather on the reef all have to be carefully watched.

Mildly Hazardous Diving

Sometimes a shell-hunting expedition aboard a chartered ketch will last a week. They have to dive for a number of species of shells, but the prevalence of sharks, gropers, and other unpleasant marine characters makes this mildly hazardous.Once the shells have been collected, they have to be cleaned and processed.

The Bowdens began using shells which, as far as they knew, had never been used in such a way before. Through constant trial and error they evolved tools and methods of treating the various types.

Technical difficulties abound- the more complicated the designs have become, the greater and more complex the problem of boring, cutting, etc. They have constantly experimented in polishing, pearling, grinding, and cementing.

To begin with, they mounted their shells on brilliantly coloured velvet ribbons, but as the fashions changed, they used raffia and straw instead.

Some of the exquisite shells they use are the black-lipped pearl shell with its peculiar smoky beauty, cat’s-eye snails, the mutton-fish shell and the nautilus.

Tropical Gardening, Too

Both are keen gardeners, they have planted flowering trees, shrubs, and creepers; such as, yellow allamanda, frangipani, hibiscus, bird of paradise, and bougainvillaea. They have their own tropical fruit orchard where oranges, bananas, pineapples, grapefruit, custard apples, limes, and pecan nuts flourish.When unexpected guests arrive for lunch, Diana just goes into the garden and picks an avocado pear for a snack!

During the mango season the garden is invaded by parakeets and king parrots.

All year round little yellow honey eaters fly in and out of the house. As for spiders, it took Diana some time to get used to seeing them sitting around the house as big as saucers.She loves cooking, especially baking bread, and uses a wood stove.

As the weather is always hot, she wears the coolest sun dresses all year round, and both she and her husband are copper coloured from sun-baking and surfing. Her household chores washing and ironing, etc., are dovetailed into a 10-to-12-hour day on shells, seven days a week during the busy tourist season.

Since they started their business in December 1949 the Bowdens have turned out over 120 different designs in necklaces alone, besides bracelets, earrings, belts, and dress clips.

From the very beginning their pieces were recognized by fashion conscious and discerning tourists and sold as soon as they were completed; and from then on the success of their work has been most exciting. Their jewellery is sold in exclusive stores in all the capital cities in Australia, and orders have come from all over the world.

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