Skimpies – women who work as bartenders while wearing bikinis or lingerie – have been a big part of pub culture in Western Australia since the 1970s. Catering to a clientele of locals and itinerant mining industry workers, skimpies serve up entertainment, human connection, and drinks in some of the most geographically isolated communities in Australia.
Taken between 2021 and 2023 by M Ellen Burns in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, these photos portray these women both on and off duty, with candid images of skimpies at work paired with personal portraits and interviews. Burns collected the images of these women with their full consent and created space for them to speak about their own experiences, this project provides a glimpse of a world rarely visible to outsiders.
SPAN® worked closely with photographer, author and now publisher M Ellen Burns, gaining incredible insights into this fascinating culture across the border in Western Australia. These insights formed the creative framework for a multi-faceted design process.
SKIMPIES has been consciously edited into two parts based on the idea of “day and night”. It begins with white-wall portraits captured while the women are off duty, emphasising the importance of their personal stories. We then take the readers onto the low-light-environment at the bars and venues where skimpies are at work with outpouring energy and interacting with those who walk through the doors. To heighten both the quiet confidence and the intense dynamism captured by Burns, matte and gloss varnishes were applied throughout the publication to create visual contrast. At the midpoint – between “day and night” – a curated selection of archival newspapers was inserted to provide historical context to the subject matter.
Connecting the personal stories to the intimate off duty portraiture, a bespoke display typeface – SKIMPIES – was drawn (by Wing Lau) with two main objectives. Firstly, to create a high contrast typographic interpretation with characteristics of the hi-vis-coloured lingerie, the tension and elasticity on the women’s bodies. Secondly, a display typeface that mirrors the studio portraits, typeset vertically, introducing the the women’s by their skimpy names.
To materialise the combined visual dynamics, we integrated a specific selection of coloured threads into an exposed spine with a hard-case Swiss-bound book construct. This subtle, tactile detail brings together colours distinctive to both the mining industry as well as this unique occupation called Skimpy.
