Honouring a local legend

Sometimes a wonderful garment just sticks in your mind. You think about the stories, you think about the possibilities.

For former fashion designer Doris de Pont, it was a white beaded El Jay cocktail gown that she'd seen in an exhibition 10 years ago at the Auckland Museum called After Five, Before Eight.

"I can remember its beaded yoke, with tags coming off it like a Maori cloak. I loved that gown and I was disappointed there wasn't follow-through with more exhibitions that tapped into the Museum's [fashion] collections," she says.

"Then last year when I was looking to do something for the Fashion Museum [which de Pont is establishing online] I found out that Gus Fisher [of El Jay] was still alive. I thought it was really important we told the story while he was still here."

De Pont has been passionate about New Zealand fashion for more than 25 years, catapulting to fame after an early win in the Benson & Hedges Fashion Awards. Her clothes have featured in museums in New Zealand and Australia.

After she closed her DNA label in 2008, she turned that passion into a new career as a curator, developing a world first notion of a museum with no permanent home. With the backing of fashion leaders and educators, her fashion museum will pull together exhibitions around themes and will pop up in various venues around the country.

The website will record the exhibition, the clothes will be returned to their owners, but the stories of the clothes and their place in society will have been captured for posterity.

It is fitting that the museum's first showing is of one of New Zealand's original great brands, and that its first pop-up venue is the gallery bequeathed by that same great, Gus Fisher. The Looking Terrific: The Story of El Jay opened at Auckland's Gus Fisher Gallery this weekend and runs until July 17.

Narrowing down the thrust of the show required de Pont to wear her curatorial, rather than designer hat.

"A curator has an obligation to give an outsider's view of somebody's practice, creating a context for that practice. The designer might want to show only their most beautiful and glamorous [pieces], but the curator wants to show the output of the designer.

Clothes in those days were very much for an occasion: morning coffee, the charity committee meeting, at home, a day in the city. There was a different outfit for each one and people knew what to wear for each. So Gus made coats, suits, day dresses, evening dresses and evening gowns.

He used to say 'A woman doesn't need to have many clothes, just good clothes suitable for every occasion"', she explains.

"So that was my story - that the key difference between clothing from the 50s and 60s and now was that then it was what you wore for each occasion. Today we expect our clothing to do everything, and then don't know what it is you're supposed to wear to something."

De Pont also wanted to capture the story of the local fashion industry in its early days. Fisher had started in his brother's Lou's fashion business straight out of school in 1938, only closing the business in 1988.

After the war, when he took over the business (Lou went on to manufacture building products), Gus moved the El Jay brand closer to his ideals of high quality and style. He travelled frequently to New York and Europe, experiencing fashion first hand. He claimed his memory for details was so good he could sketch any garment he'd seen on the street or runway and his pattern cutters could cut from that.

Importantly, he became known and admired by the top fabric houses, so that he was recommended by one when a young Christian Dior was looking for worldwide manufacturers to make his line under licence.

The exhibition shows pictures of a young Gus Fisher with Dior himself - the agreement was negotiated and signed through 1953 and 1954 - as well as with Marc Bohan and Yves Saint Laurent.

The original licence was subject to renewal every four years, but eventually Paris and Gus Fisher were so in sync that he no longer had to send samples for approval. He held the licence for 33 years.

As well as the garments themselves - more on that later - de Pont has also unearthed legendary stories about the people who worked for Fisher. From the models whose hair and makeup had to exactly mimic those of the shows in Paris (and who endured numerous pre-show fittings), to the retailers, fabric and trim suppliers, and most importantly, from the pattern makers, cutters, machinists and hand-finishers in the factory, working with El Jay was a rare chance to taste the style and quality of the world's fashion capitals.

"What was remarkable for me was that his staff stayed such a long time, in an environment of full employment" says de Pont.

"And the people who worked in the shops were well loved by everyone in the workroom. It is a testament to the quality of their workmanship, to the fabrics from the likes of Levana [textile manufacturer] in Levin that they could reproduce that Paris quality line by line. That is the story about our New Zealand fashion industry."

De Pont was delighted too at the number of El Jay or Dior garments still in owners' hands. Her publicity for the show kicked off in December last year in media around the country. She culled the nearly 300 submissions to 70 pieces ("I'd planned 50 in honour of El Jay's 50 years in business, but I was forced upwards by so many fabulous things.") She was as much intrigued by what she couldn't find a lot of - evening and party gowns - as what she was swamped by.

"Ultra Suede, from the late 1970s and early 80s. That was very indestructible, and people took to it because women like the Kennedy women were photographed wearing it. I think the party dresses from the 50s and 60s ended up in dressing-up boxes. I know all my daughter's friends paraded up the driveway in some of my Benson & Hedges winning pieces, I'm sure that happened all around the country. So it was the suits and less fancy things that people have kept in good condition."

Since museums are as much about the provenance and stories behind the pieces, each garment comes with its wearer's memories about where and how it was worn or bought. One going-away outfit from 1965 not only has its flower petal hat, spare fabric, and satin dyed shoes, it also has the receipt for £33 11/6. Its Hamilton owner had earned £36 a fortnight at the time: de Pont often found the owners were not just the wealthy lunchers, but women from all around the country who wanted the importance of fine couture in their lives.

"Interestingly, I found professional women from the era. Many of the suits were from doctors, buyers for the department stores - working women actually. That was a pleasant surprise to know that women in the 50s and 60s weren't all domestic goddesses, but that they were buying [these clothes] for themselves."

Some of the buyers will be delighted to see their clothes displayed on original mannequins, plinths and stands meticulously copied by Gus Fisher from the Paris originals for his stores - the French Store in Remuera, the El Jay and Ultra Suede stores at 246 Queen St, and the salon in Kingston St (intriguingly closed to all - de Pont herself only managed admittance in April). Students from Whitecliffe College helped set up the exhibition, taking the chance to see and learn from the masters.

"This is an opportunity to show that there was fashion in New Zealand before the 90s, that we all come from a lineage. I think it is valuable to have a context to practice from, and I think it is very interesting that all these stories and books and this show have intersected at the same time," she says.

"You could say that fashion is fashionable at the moment."

OUR FASHION HISTORY

* Looking Terrific: the Story of El Jay, is on at the Gus Fisher Gallery, Shortland St, City until July 17, ph (09) 923 6646 or gusfishergallery.auckland.ac.nz.

* My El Jay, at 1pm, July 3, will feature personal histories from those who worked for Gus Fisher and El Jay. Attendees are invited to wear their Ultra Suede or other El Jay garments to this free event.

* Visit The New Zealand Fashion Museum Charitable Trust and join their email list to receive information about future events.