Napier City Business Art Deco shop window competition winner is Magazine Designer Clothing

Napier City business general manager Pip Thompson (left) and Lisa Schroder, manager of winning shop Magazine Designer Clothing. Photo / Warren Buckland

The annual Napier City Business Art Deco shop window competition seemed to be made to order for winner and women's clothing retailer Lisa Schroder.

Living in Auckland, she fell in love with Art Deco and Napier and was a regular festival-goer with Whenuapai couple Shayne and Leigh Chalklen. She moved to Hawke's Bay in 2020 with husband Dave to "semi-retire".

But when former employer Magazine Designer Clothing announced it was opening a branch in Napier its offer was too good to refuse and she's been manager since it opened in Hastings St 14 months ago.

Hawke's Bay friends Sam McCarthy (left), Delia Gillies and Rylee Diack living it up outside the Masonic. Photo / Warren Buckland

It was there on Wednesday that she was "very surprised" amid a week's annual leave taken especially for the Art Deco Week - and the now-annual trek of her friends from Whenuapai - to hear the shop display, dressed almost entirely with the "quality" sizes 10-26 stock, had won the Gold Award.

It was one which stood out for Mayor Kirsten Wise, Napier City Business chairman Kim Hooper and Art Deco Trust heritage manager Jeremy Smith as they set out late on Tuesday afternoon to judge the 17 entries.

The Silver Award went to Spex Eyewear, in Emerson St, and the Bronze Award went to the Cranford Hospice Store in Dickens St, the shop Schroder personally rated as having the best chance of winning.

"I was hoping for third," she said, in what was a particularly special moment, with the Chalklens also on hand, well into the Art Deco spirit and vibe emerging on the streets of Napier in the realisation that despite Covid restrictions something is actually on.

Jess Williams of Auckland and Kirstin Scott of Whakatane get into the Deco mood. Photo / Warren Buckland

"Everything's been a bit flat, our cities have been a bit quiet," said Napier City Business general manager Pip Thompson.

"It's given the place, the city, a big zhoosh."

It seemed forgotten that the programme for the 34th year of the festival had been limited by the Covid-19 Protection Framework red setting, and Shayne Chalklen, who had hoped the 1930 Ford Roadster he's rebuilding would have been ready in time, wasn't one to let anything interfere with a good time.

He and his wife probably would have come anyway.

"We come here [Napier] regularly," he said. "We love it."

The festival runs from February 16-20.