Questions were asked about my own 1988 wardrobe when, on Wednesday, this columnist attended the opening of A Capital Collection: Our History in Fashion, an exhibition all about what was worn to the opening of Parliament House on May 9, 1988. For this boy reporter was there, then, part of a battalion of news gatherers committed to reporting every nuance of the great day.

We forget (but shudder to think about) what we wore, but the exhibition reminds us, with displays, of the sorts of things worn on the day by the invited women of the upper classes and by the invited (but only as far as the forecourt) women of the middle classes. Then, of which more in a moment, there is a display of the uniform of a girl guide who performed a symbolically important function on the day, and of the actual uniform of a female Parliament House guide of the era.

''Here we've got two extremes of ladies' fashion,'' exhibition curator Roslyn Hull explained, pointing to the two juxtaposed fashion ensembles.

One of them, a plain but effortlessly elegant Prue Acton suit of an indescribable shade of blue (imagine a midnight blue with a hint of midnight purple about it) with an effortlessly elegant black straw hat, was worn by the sort of superior woman invited to attend the exclusive grand ceremony (in the presence of the Queen) in the Great Hall.

The middle-class outfit by Maggie Shepherd (of Canberra) is an ensemble of howling purples and shrieking oranges (and made from ''various polyesters''). It is, Hull believes, a symbol of the way in which ''the '80s were all about colour … there was that Jenny Kee flamboyant colour everywhere''.

This ensemble is displayed with an excerpt from the invitations that were sent to the sorts of classes likely to wear such things. It explains that while you are an invited guest you won't be allowed into the Great Hall with the illustrious but will anyway enjoy being outdoors in the forecourt listening to a relay of what your superiors are up to indoors.

Yes, indoors and dressed as brazenly as this, any woman would have been an unwanted distraction from her majesty, who on the day was wearing an outfit in what one reporter called ''eye-smiting pink''.

And so to the original Ranger Guide uniform, circa 1985, identical to the one worn at the opening by the damsel who had the privilege of opening the door of the Queen's official car after it arrived and purred to a halt with its regal cargo. Hull and Department of Parliamentary Services secretary Carol Mills both see enormous significance in this. They point out that when Lady Denman arrived at the great 1913 occasion of our city's naming ceremony the door of her vehicle was opened by a soldier. Then when the Duke and Duchess of York arrived for the opening of the provisional Parliament House in 1927 their carriage's doors were opened by footmen.

But in 1988, Mills enthused as we looked at the two juxtaposed costumes of the girl guide and of the female Parliament House guide: females were getting some guernseys.

''These two uniforms together are really important for us [today] because it was symbolic that there were young females there. It was a young girl [the girl guide] who opened the [car] door on the arrival of the Queen … It wasn't a military thing. It was a very important symbol of the openness of Australia and the intent behind the new Parliament House for it to be an open place.

''And so as well there were male and female Parliament House guides. This was different, because by the 1980s it was assumed women could have the full breadth of roles in the public service. So [these uniforms are] of women who were involved in the opening, symbolise some of the changes between 1927 and 1988 and symbolise some of the aspirations we had for Parliament House to be the symbol of contemporary Australia.''

And while on the subject of the part played by women on the day there was a fine passage of action and fun, while we all awaited outside in the forecourt. A female cleaner emerged and began to vacuum the already pristine-looking 20 metres of red carpet that stretched from where the Queen was going to alight right up the main doors of Parliament. This boy reporter, moved by the spectacle of this tiny, working-class, blue-uniformed figure set against the marble immensity of the Parliament's facade, beetled across to ask her her name and where she was from. When, eventually, she got to the dais and vacuumed it with special intensity because VIP feet were going to stand there, the huge crowd behind the barriers gave her a spontaneous ovation. A (shy) star was born.

This, an ovation for a cleaner, was a great Aussie pomp-deflating moment lots of us who were there remember with delight.

■ The exhibition A Capital Collection: Our History in Fashion continues at the National Capital Exhibition at Regatta Point (a tulip bulb's throw from Floriade) until December 16.