Dual honour staggers designer

By BRIDGET CARTER

New Zealand costume designer Ngila Dickson had to print out the Oscar nomination list from her computer to believe it.

There, staring back from the piece of paper, was her name twice on the Best Costume Design Oscar nomination list.

It appeared for The Last Samurai and for her work with Richard Taylor on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of The King.

Her partner, art critic Hamish Keith, broke the news to her early yesterday when he checked the Oscar nominations on the internet.

"He said we [had] two nominations, and I said I [didn't] believe it.

"I said to print it out."

From then, Dickson popped open the champagne, took an endless stream of telephone calls from people who had heard the news and got to work preparing for a celebratory dinner party at her Auckland home last night.

"I still don't believe it," she said.

"I thought someone was playing a joke on me ... It is surreal any way you look at it."

The first congratulations came through an email, then later in the form of flowers, from The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and his partner and co-producer Fran Walsh.

They had been up at 2.30am and she said they were "just screaming" when they heard of her nominations.

It is the second time Dickson has been nominated for an Oscar: she won the honour for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

She "likes humanity in clothes" and has had a long career in the clothing and film industry.

She worked as a fashion designer and fashion magazine editor before she began concentrating on designing costumes for film and television.

Her work includes the television programme Xena: Warrior Princess, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Sewing since the age of 8, and growing up in Dunedin with a mother who was always making outfits, Dickson said she knew clothes backwards.

Most days working as a costume designer were fabulous, but most involved working with a cold and wet film crew, who looked dirty and dishevelled.

"It is really an unglamorous industry in day-to-day life," she said.

"Only because I am the costume designer, I make an effort to wear nice clothes."

Dickson said she had not yet given any thought to what she would wear for Oscar night in a month's time.

She does, however, think the evening will be "a riot" with so many New Zealand nominees.

Usually, a designer was too busy dressing everyone else to worry about what they were going to wear, she joked.

But today she planned to visit Liz Findlay, designer for New Zealand clothing label Zambesi.