The Aces in the tarot are all indicative of new beginnings. When you draw any of them, it means that you are at a point in your life where a new cycle is beginning – you are about to start afresh. Because the suit of pentacles is primarily concerned with all things material (not just financial, but also with the sensual), this reset could manifest itself as a new career, the undertaking of a new venture, or the start of putting more care into your health. Wherever this beginning takes place, the Ace of Pentacles assures that what is to come will bring great abundance and opportunity.
In 1918 while trying on a bridesmaid’s dress at the exclusive Melbourne fashion boutique of G. H. V. Thomas, Lillian Wightman so impressed the proprietor with her suggested redesign of the dress that he offered her a job as a salesgirl. She learned how to manage an atelier, to engage the customers, and to recognise quality.
In 1922, in her twenties, Wightman undertook an exciting new venture. She borrowed one hundred pounds from her father and opened her own salon in Howey Place. It was situated in a series of laneways in the fashionable city block bounded by Elizabeth, Collins, Bourke, and Swanston streets, where society ladies would come to ‘do the block’—to shop, lunch, and be seen. She named her salon ‘Le Louvre’ as she believed Paris to be the heart and soul of fashion, sophistication, and style.
The rest is history! From this seed grew an icon! Le Louvre signified everything Australia wasn’t. With polished copper framing its wide windows, the fashion house came to represent not just a very exclusive form of retail therapy, but the Melbourne establishment itself. Tulle draped across the windows veiled offerings from the hoi polloi. It was old-money, high-class and very exclusive. It was in Wightman’s realm that Melbourne’s version of the “carriage trade” – many of them daughters and wives of wealthy Western District farmers – promenaded in their finery, an exercise known as “doing the Block”. Those people would come for the afternoon and they would buy what they called their trousseau for the season – six or eight outfits and hats. They would all sit here on the sofa. They would have cups of tea or if they needed something a little stronger, they would get that.
‘Buying 74 Collins Street wasn’t a big step,’ said Wightman. ‘I didn’t even think about it. It was an old doctor’s home and I pulled a lot of the guts out of it. The lane is cobble-stoned, and the fitting room was the kitchen, it still has the hearth stone in it. Above it was the loft where they threw down the hay for the doctor’s horse. It is one of the oldest remaining buildings in Melbourne made of handmade bricks.’ . . . In the 11 years in Howey Place I had built up a business which had fantastic snob value, always has had. . . . You’ve got to aim high to rise. I wanted to go to the top end of Collins Street and own my own business. . . .” (from Farmar Families.)
Wightman maintained her modus operandi: private clients, including Nellie Melba and Vivien Leigh, appointments preferred, discretion guaranteed. NGV features a collection of some of her garments.
Waltzing With Matilda's 