NZ Fashion Fest : WTF

CONDOMS, meat, dirty money and discarded computer cables aren't the usual textiles for making clothing. But Rebecca Mills and other K'Rd locals are using an array of unconventional materials for their rubbish bin skirts which will adorn the street for the What the Frock festival, running with the New Zealand Fashion Festival and First Thursdays.

A collaboration of the K'Rd business association and Margaret Lewis from The Big Idea, the skirt makers learned about the area from a K'Rd historian and chose an element of the street's colourful, sometimes sordid, past to reflect in their creations.

For Miss Mills, director of sustainability organisation Ministry of Green, she looked at the area's ecological changes and the onslaught of e-waste as K'Rd becomes increasingly business-focused.

"I want to raise awareness of the digital revolution and how we're using our computers," she says of her design, adorned in discarded cables. Her bin of choice sits over a stormwater drain, which once was the thriving Waihorutu Stream or "Queen St" river that ran down into Myers Park.

"It was originally an open, beautiful stream," she says of the waterway that children used to fish in for eels and Maori and early European settlers used for drinking water, "but it became an open septic drain which eventually had to be totally covered."

Miss Mill's creation is one of more than a dozen designs, each of which will carry a large clothing tag detailing how they relate to K'Rd's social and physical history and future.

Ms Lewis says she hopes the skirts will generate discussion among locals and visitors to the street.

"It will be a really important opportunity to talk to people about the street and social issues.

"We want people to have a deeper sense of appreciation for K'Rd's massive history. To engage and feel they're in a place that's wider than what they see. You get a sense of wonderment for what it must have been like," says Ms Lewis, who is making a "Red Light" skirt and recalls her own long affiliation with the street, from catching rides home with her brother who worked as a plumber's apprentice to working in the Telecom building in the 90s to her current role in the new Ironbank building.

"As a teenager, I'd have to be up here by 5 o'clock to get a ride home. Sometimes my brother's boss would send me into the strip joints to find him - they were [the plumbing company's] clients."

Barbara Grace, from the K'Rd business association, is making a meat skirt entitled "Eat the Rich", which relates to old K'Rd butchers and the Auckland Meat Company, also once trading on the street.

"It's definitely provocative," says Ms Lewis.

"We tried it out and got a reaction from a courier driver," she says of the kerbside discussion about vegetarianism that took place round the bin.

What's now St Kevin's Arcade was once the Nathan home and the first house built of scoria in Auckland. Artist Laura Cibilich's skirt is themed on the old home's architecture while a music and film-inspired skirt by Sally O'Doherty will represent the old Vogue Cinema.

From March 1 the skirts will be displayed on selected bins between Queen S and Hopetoun St, where they will remain until they are taken, destroyed or decayed.

"If people need a USB cord, they can take one from here," says Ms Lewis.

Details

WHAT What the Frock

When Beginning March 1 with the New Zealand Fashion Festival

Where Between Queen and Hopetoun Streets