Portrait of a lady

by Jo-Anne Hui | 02 Jan 2016

 

Australia’s Queen of Etiquette may be 88 years old, but she still reigns supreme over the finishing school and business college she started 65 years ago in the bush. Here, Jo-Anne Hui chats with June Dally-Watkins about her former modelling career, her life as an entrepreneur and the perils of mobile phones.

 

Getting ready to meet Australia’s Queen of Etiquette, June Dally-Watkins, is a nerve-wracking experience. Is my hair shiny and clean? Is this dress showing too much cleavage? Does my bag match my shoes?

Hopefully I won’t accidentally let a swear word slip in during conversation, I think to myself, before walking through the door of her office. I make a promise to myself that I will perfectly enunciate each and ev-e-ry word during our interview and put my mobile phone on silent.

After all, the last thing I want to do is offend Miss Dally (as she is known by everyone, or simply ‘Dally’, by her closest friends) with my common behaviour, imagining her to be a solemn woman with perfect posture, walking as though she has an invisible book on her head.

But when I meet Miss Dally, she greets me with a delightfully warm smile, rests her hand on mine for an extra beat or two and inquires about my family and my line of work (all the while sitting up perfectly straight in her seat). She is the epitome of charm and grace.

Don’t be fooled by Miss Dally’s age (she’s 88 this year), tinkling laughter or gentle demeanour. As one of Australia’s first high-profile models (or mannequins, as they were known at the time), she was named Model of the Year and the Most Photographed Model of the Year in 1949. Miss Dally also organised one-woman fashion shows overseas and rubbed shoulders with Hollywood royalty, including Bing Crosby, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr and Gregory Peck (with whom she enjoyed a short romance).

But beyond the glamour, she is a successful entrepreneur who bucked against the trend and launched her own business and finishing school at the age of 22 in the 50s, when women were destined to become housewives and care for their children and husbands.

Here, Miss Dally shares how she went from her bush hometown in little Watsons Creek in NSW to running her own empire.

The unexpected entrepreneur

A pioneering businesswoman in Australia, Miss Dally has been running June Dally-Watkins Business Finishing College for 65 years all around Australia and most recently, China. In 1993, she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in recognition for her contribution to business and commerce and in 2009, she was the NSW finalist for the Senior Australian of the Year.

Since Miss Dally opened the college in 1950, more than 300,000 students have passed through her doors, several of whom have gone on to become successful models, including high-profile supermodel Miranda Kerr. The school has produced 11 winners of the Miss Australia, Miss World, Miss Universe and Miss Teen International Awards in the past.

Despite all the accolades and success she has garnered over the years, Miss Dally does not consider herself to be a successful entrepreneur.

“I’ve never run it as a business. It’s something I do from my heart. I’m not a very good businesswoman. I just work hard and love my students – I still do a lot of the teaching in the classes. I think it’s because I love and care for our students that it continues on,” she says.  

The college runs in Sydney and Brisbane, where Miss Dally also launched a modelling agency and, last year, the business extended to Guangzhou, China. Miss Dally continues to teach classes and travels to China several times a year, where she also plans to launch her own skincare brand and clothing range in the future.

Breaking all the rules

Back in the 50s, when women had few options and rarely led their own careers, it was almost unheard of for a female to run her own business. However, Miss Dally suffered from a difficult childhood and was determined to become independent and have control over her future.

“I grew up as an illegitimate child. I never knew my father and saw that my mother suffered for it, so I wanted to empower women and make them strong,” she says.

With the support of her mother Kay, Miss Dally was inspired to launch her own school, where she could use her skills to teach students how to best present themselves in social and business environments. She was 22 years old at the time.

When Miss Dally got married to John Paul and had her four children (Carel, Tim, Marc and Lisa) while continuing to run her school, she received many abusive phone calls at night from angry women, who disagreed with her lifestyle. Meanwhile, newspapers often commented on how she would neglect her husband, who was at home with the children.

“I insisted on keeping and running my business after I had children. So I’d go to hospital, have my baby and come to work with my child, which was very much condemned,” Miss Dally says. “In the evening when I was teaching, women would call and say ‘You’re disgusting and you’re a terrible mother. Go home to your starving children’.”

But the more Miss Dally was criticised, the more determined she was to prove she could juggle her career with her family life.

During the day, she would take up modelling work, then rush to teach classes at her school in the evening. Her mother would pop by with a home-cooked meal for her at dinner time.

The college taught subjects such as personal development, receptionist skills, corporate success, posture and figure correction, wardrobe and make-up. Those same topics that Miss Dally first scribbled in her business plan in the bush at Watsons Creek in 1949 are still being taught today.

“I think everything I teach is worthwhile. I don’t do anything that’s over-the-top, over-glamorous or is only in fashion one year and out the next. I teach what is basic and what is best for the human being,” she explains.

“Many of the students who come to me now are third generation graduates – often, ex-students who are now parents and grandparents send their daughters to me. Everything I teach lasts forever.”

The modern life

The world has changed a lot since the 50s, when the way people interacted with each other and presented themselves was quite formal and structured in comparison to our society now. In fact, Miss Dally believes that modern manners are now virtually non-existent, especially with the introduction of the mobile phone in the past 20 years or so.

“On the train this morning, everyone was on their mobile. Everyone. Modern etiquette is shocking. People don’t care. I blame the mobile phone because everyone is walking around on their phones and you have to dodge them when you’re walking down the street. And on the train, people will speak on their phones loudly,” she says.

“Yesterday, I also saw a girl sitting on the bus, putting on her make-up. Isn’t that just disgusting? I felt like telling her to just get up earlier in the morning!”

In fact, Miss Dally doesn’t own her own mobile phone, for fear of technology taking over her life (“We’ll all turn into a bunch of robots”). As she explains, people now rely on their mobile phones to find and store information instead of using their brains. And now that our lives are often disrupted by technology, it’s difficult for us to find some peace and solitude to reflect.

As a child, Miss Dally grew up on her grandfather’s sheep property in Watsons Creek and every day, she would walk two miles on her own down a hill, across a creek and halfway up another hill to attend a bush school run by one teacher.

“That was so precious and it’s what I treasure – that time when you’re on your own and you can just think and imagine. Back then, I only had myself to talk to when I walked two miles to school,” she says. “That’s not what’s happening now to so many people. They’re poking at their mobile phones instead of using their brains. I see people sitting at the dinner table with their mobiles, when they should be communicating with each other.”

How to stay active

Miss Dally has no intention of ever retiring or leaving the successful business that she’s built.

“I don’t want to retire, I want to keep busy. When I wake up in the morning, my body says, ‘Oh Miss Dally, I want to stay in bed!’ but my brain says, ‘What about me? What will I do?’ So I get up, get dressed, put my make-up on and then my brain and body are both happy,” she says.

Whether or not you’re retired, Miss Dally’s advice for older ladies and gentlemen is to keep active, whether you’re catching up with friends, gardening or volunteering. For example, Miss Dally is also an ambassador for Crossroads International, which helps to empower women in developing countries around the world.

“Just don’t stay at home doing nothing and sit and watch television all day, because your brain will fade away. We have to keep our bodies and brains active. It’s really very important, otherwise it can slow down and stop working,” she says.

“I tell everyone I’m 25. I feel like I’m 25 inside. It’s what I tell everyone. If you think you’re 25, you’re going to feel it.” ••