New Zealand fashion didn't begin with New Zealand Fashion Week. Nor, as a new book examining the country's fashion finds, is the seven-decade-old industry merely about clothes. The book's co-author, Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, talks to Rebecca Barry.
They started on a high and went out on one too, launching with a mock protest up Queen St in 1972, decked out in their own designs. The Tigermoth collective's final fashion show, three years later, was held in bohemian rock 'n' roll style, at an Auckland synagogue. Daphne Mitten showcased sexy gowns made from Chinese silk purchased from iconic importer Wah Lee and vintage rayon discovered in the Rendells basement on Karangahape Rd. Iconic model Judith Baragwanath was there to witness the mad event, in which members of the audience, like the performers, were decked out in masks and wigs.
So much for the excitement of this past New Zealand Fashion Week. We've long been an entrepreneurial and creative nation of designers but with the explosion of interest in the 10-year-old trade show, we could be forgiven for thinking an industry didn't exist beforehand. Now, thanks to the careful preservation of writers Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Lucy Hammonds and Claire Regnault, legendary stories such as that of the short-lived Tigermoth label will no longer be relegated to the dusty rear of the wardobe.
The Dress Circle: New Zealand Fashion Since 1940, a door-stopper of a book published this month by Random, is the trio's comprehensive celebration of New Zealand designers, and an industry - manufacturers, department stores, stylists, photographers, writers - that grew up in its wake. Taking four years to compile, it's a long-awaited nod of recognition to all those who made it possible to operate now. The good, the bad, and the forgotten are featured, as are the social shifts that drove them, and the zeitgeisty fashion photography that captured them.
"One of the things that set me off was people saying we've suddenly got a fashion industry," says Lloyd Jenkins, one of New Zealand's most prolific design writers, and the director of the Hawkes Bay Museum and Art Gallery.
"People are very weird about fashion. That expression, 'the decade that taste forgot', used to refer to the 70s. Then it got moved to the 80s, and now it's used for the 90s. So it takes a while to understand it ... you can see what they were on about now."
Jenkins had encountered several interesting characters he wasn't able to feature in his 2004 At Home: A Century of New Zealand Design, the Montana-winning architectural history tome, and felt there was a large piece of the story that deserved to be told. He enlisted his colleague and curator Hammonds and Te Papa curator Regnault and they set about fighting over the decades.
"To be honest, I would've loved to do the 80s because it was a scene in which I was involved, the menswear was strong. But I lost out to Claire. What I know most is the post-war period, and Lucy, being younger, had a natural affection for the 70s."
Told mostly through first-hand accounts and archival news clipppings, the book would not have been possible without the help of 1960s designer Joan Talbot, who'd been a habitual newspaper clipping collector since the 1940s. The real story begins even further back but the clothes, and the designers, have long since gone.
Instead, World War II makes for a convenient firing-off point. Suddenly style-conscious New Zealand women who'd traditionally sewed their own clothes couldn't go and buy a pattern from England or a magazine from France because they were no longer being shipped here. Rations on materials affected design as skirts got shorter and the Government banned turn-ups on trousers.
Those who stepped up to fill the void emerged as talented designers, among them Aucklanders Trilby Yates, Bobby Angus and Flora MacKenzie, who in turn trained budding underlings, starting a snowball effect.
The book is really about the growth of a cult - like most of the arts, its patrons are a small group of ambitious artists and wealthy fashionistas who dared to buck convention. The young designers who did emerge were those with the most entrepreneurial grit, as they had few avenues in which to promote themselves. Yates, for example, succeeded by "sheer force of personality," says Lloyd Jenkins, "because she didn't have money. But she was, by all accounts, a dynamic woman. Flora came from a moneyed background and I suspect Daddy funded it. That's a business model still used today. She was a dynamic woman. Bobby Angus was married to an advertising man."
Lloyd Jenkins tracked down the children and friends of the likes of Yates and MacKenzie (who eventually abandoned fashion design when she became a brothel-keeper), and salvaged press interviews they'd done towards the ends of their lives. Others, such as MacKenzie's protege, Bruce Papas, who went on to become an prominent designer in the 1950s, helped to add the missing pieces of her story.
By the 1950s, a period known for its formal style and elaborate evening gowns, local designers were beginning to be taken more seriously. The 50s also heralded the arrival of haute couture in Auckland, thanks to the establishment of a salon by Paris-trained Kiwi designer Nancy Harvey.
"Most women would have bought clothes from department stores or sewn their own, but some formed relationships with the early designers. These were fairly affluent people. It might mean they only bought a couple of dresses a year. We buy a lot more clothes now. Clothes are a lot more disposable than they used to be."
The 50s also marked a return to air travel, meaning wealthy farmers' wives could head to London and do their shopping there. Dior and Givenchy were among the names becoming more familiar to New Zealand women. Locally, names such as Papas, Emma Knuckey and Hall Ludlow were also opening salons selling chic tailored pieces. Chemise ushered in a new youth-led fashion trend, as opposed to the designers who targeted older, wealthy women in the market for haute couture.
Picking up on the flurry of design activity, women's magazines began to cover local fashion, with style bible Vogue helping to perpetuate the idea that New Zealand had its own industry. New migrants, many of them refugees from Nazi Europe, were also starting up new labels. Designers were looking to dress young, independent working women who'd been given jobs during the war but didn't want to return to domestic drudgery.
"We know individual fashion designers now but if you go back to the 40s and 50s you knew who the labels were, not who actually designed them," says Lloyd Jenkins. "That's the thing about fashion, it used to be for people in the know, whereas now it's all over the media."
Things grew exciting in the 1960s, as the baby boomer "youthquake" began to seep into popular culture. It was goodbye to the fabulous yet impractical gowns, (many of which are still on display at the Hawkes Bay Museum), and hello to the more youthful styles proffered by young designers. The rule of fashion used to be that a young woman tried to look about 40 as early as possible and stay there for as long as possible, says Lloyd Jenkins.
"Whereas today women want to look like an 18-year-old and stay there as long as possible. When that youthquake thing comes along and suddenly girls don't dress like their mothers anymore, there's an engagement with young designers because they're the people doing something outrageous and interesting."
The 1970s saw an upheaval in political and social change, and the burgeoning bohemian lifestyle. Women with more time for careers had less time for sewing.
The time was ripe for boutiques, such as the popular Auckland concept boutique Hullabaloo, and the more exclusive designs came under pressure as they were now competing with mass trendy and affordable garments.
New Zealand fashion was also finding its feet overseas, particularly with wool, and a handful of local designers, such as Marilyn Sainty, relocated to Australia to set up boutiques. The Benson and Hedges Fashion Design Awards were born, and Maori and Polynesian designers were gaining in prominence.
"That boutique culture of the 60s and 70s exploded interest in local design because the big department stores weren't bringing that stuff in fast enough," says Lloyd Jenkins. "What used to happen is lovely designs would come from Britain, Mary Quant, for instance, in bright orange and paisley but New Zealanders would make it a nice brown."
By the 80s, inspired by TV shows like Gloss (on which Liz Mitchell worked in the costume department) and an optimistic, splurge mentality, fashion was all about excess and showing off. The names who emerged during this time - Mitchell, Paula Ryan, Ngila Dickson, Trelise Cooper, Zambesi - continue to play a big part in fashion today.
"That's what I was really trying to say in the book, that fashion as an industry is hard and it's a long slog to get where Zambesi has got to. They didn't just suddenly emerge out of nowhere in 1999, there was probably 10-15 years of slog before that. Fashion is hard, the fashion industry is harder. There are an awful lot of young people going into the fashion world thinking it's all going to be a lot of fun, and it's hard work."
By the 1990s, a distinctive local style was starting to emerge, one not just driven by the apparel industry but inspired by some of New Zealand's leading sports, arts and music figures.
It was also a difficult time for the fashion industry, as thanks to international trade tariffs being lifted, local designers now faced increased competition from abroad. Those who made the biggest splash would go on to become today's big names: World, Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester. The book also delves into what went wrong with the likes of former fashion stars Nicholas Blanchet, who went under, and Insidious Fix, after a drugs scandal.
"In fashion design people only want to talk about the good stuff," says Lloyd Jenkins. "It's hard to get people to talk about going under. But if you aren't honest about what happened in the past you end up giving this false idea to the young people coming through."
A result of what Lloyd Jenkins says is a proliferation of wannabe designers is a shortage of those with sewing skills. He knows of a number of sewers and machinists who worked in the 60s who are still employed today, such as Zambesi's head cutter , who was trained by Gus Fisher in the 1950s.
"We've gone from a world in the 40s where there were an awful lot of home sewers and hardly any designers, and now we have a world full of designers and no home sewers."
* The Dress Circle, by Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Lucy Hammonds and Claire Regnault (Random House, $75).
