Christchurch businesswoman Louise Sutherland says you'll never catch her in a grey two-piece. She aims to inspire others via her Outfit Of The Day Instagram posts. Photo / Martin Hunter
Do clothes maketh the woman? Two power dressers tell Kim Knight how earthquakes, pandemics and personal tragedies have influenced what they wear. Interviews with Te Papa chief executive Courtney Johnston and Christchurch businesswoman Louise Sutherland
Courtney Johnston is the chief executive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. She says clothes are like artworks and, until she interviewed for this job, her only pants were jeans.
When I was 32, my first husband died. He committed suicide, so I was widowed at 32, which was difficult, obviously but it threw me into a kind of identity rebuilding.
He'd struggled horrendously with depression and anxiety and to cope with that, my world got quite small and I became quite restrained. After he died, I got thrown back into the world. I think your early 30s can be quite important, that "post-university stage of being". I went from the web company where I was working to The Dowse Art Museum. It was a big period of change.
When William died I dropped a lot of weight really quickly. For about a month or two months afterwards, I needed to be really clean all the time. Like really scrubbed clean. I went out and bought a week's worth of T-shirts. Plain white T-shirts and new jeans and three Standard Issue cardigans. I couldn't wear my old clothes because they were so tightly linked to this life that had just stopped.
Before, clothes were clothes were clothes, although I'd started making a little bit more money and I was getting to have a little bit more fun with fashion. This was a rupture point, where they became something very different. I don't think the idea of "armour" is a cliche. I felt like I was flung apart and I had all this crazy energy. Having this restricted wardrobe was a way of containing everything. It was strange and it was powerful and it was what it was.
When I applied for the job at The Dowse I remember wearing quite a conservative black dress and a black blazer. I was trying desperately to look more grown-up than I felt I was at 33. I was trying to project a "safe pair of hands". When I was coming to Te Papa to join the executive leadership team, I'd grown far more into my skin ... but for the chief executive role I did actually go into a bit of a tailspin.
I was really affected by an earlier recruitment experience. The recruiter told me that I looked too young, too fresh-faced. Basically, "Come back when you've got a few more wrinkles." Look older but don't look old! People gave me their opinions: "Try to make your voice sound deeper so you sound more authoritative, maybe you could get a haircut that makes you look a bit older." I went to my hairdresser and asked for that and he just looked at me like I was bats*** crazy. I did go and buy my first suit. A World suit, so not conservative at all. It felt so much more assertive than I felt that I never wore it to any of the interviews. I just got so overwhelmed by its suity-ness.
As a woman, I think people read your clothing more. A guy gets up in the morning and, in most professional cases, it's this blue suit or that blue suit. My first time presenting to the Te Papa board, as the person who they had appointed CE, I woke up and I had raging period cramps. I felt really bloated and I knew I was going to have to sit in a room that has temperature fluctuations for five or six hours. I just thought, "Men do not have to face these conundrums."
I think I wore quite a comfy black dress that had a fitted bodice and a lot of flare and thank God for my doctor, who has put me on proper painkillers. They seem like luxury problems but they're also everyday work problems and we're still not particularly great at talking about them ... Like when you're the only woman on a panel discussion and you turn up and you're wearing a skirt and everyone's sitting on high stools - what do you do then? When you've got a mic-pack on and you've got no waistband and you've got someone grubbling around your back trying to clip it on to your bra straps - how do you deal with that?
Fashioning the way you present yourself to the world is fun and it is quite intellectually interesting and it is a power that you have. I collect perfumes, for example and I'll think about it right down to that level. I will pick a spikier, more aggressive one or an androgynous one or a more flowery one, depending on what and how that day is shaping up.
I used to hate public speaking and getting to the point where I do it with some confidence has taken a lot of work. A big pair of shoes or a big necklace draws focus away from your face - it's probably an illusion for me but I will quite purposefully accessorise in a way that makes me feel like people are focusing on a "thing" rather than focusing on me.
I come from a visual background ... one of the things you learn through art history is the "presentation of self". Especially if I'm at a pōwhiri or something like that, then often I find myself - it's very superficial - I find myself looking at haircuts and hairstyles on the paepae in front of me. I comment if someone is wearing a great frock and then I wonder, "Am I leaning into the worst kind of feminine stereotypes or am I just being a normal person?" Because I pay attention to perfume, and I am an extroverted person, I will occasionally find myself saying to a complete stranger, "You smell amazing." Which is either a great way to make new friends or to make people feel really uncomfortable.
I am a very physically comfortable person. I do Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is wrestling and grappling. I am always up in people's space and so you do see them right down to the level of, "What do you smell like today?"
I was a farm girl, I grew up in the 80s, which, you know, was sartorially awesome. Me and my Nike shorts! One of the very few tantrums I remember throwing as a child was every summer we'd go and stay with my aunt and uncle in Remuera and have footpaths and go on buses. And I can remember going to 277 Newmarket and I wanted SO BAD one of those bubble skirts. The black bubble skirt with the kind of fluoro creases.
This apartment [where the interview took place], I bought it before Reuben and I got married and I had three stepkids ... some of the things that happen when you go shopping with over-excited 9 and 10-year-old girls? Long dresses. Both Sylvester. I busted one out to wear to the fish and chip shop. Clothes for me are a bit like artworks. I can't go clothes shopping when I'm unhappy,
they're always things that are bought in an optimistic or excited frame of mind. It's quite celebratory - I feel happy about the way I am in the world and I want to express that.
A STORY IN SEVEN PIECES - COURTNEY JOHNSTON
1/ Camel coat by Marc Jacobs
I desperately wanted to be sophisticated. My first push-the-boat-out, grown-up label, after some horribly misjudged moments when I was at City Gallery as a post-grad student and all everyone was wearing was that really classic, iconic World bustle skirt. I looked so awful in that skirt. I remember being heartbroken - "I'm never going to be a curator, because I can't wear the clothes." I always felt like I was just off the farm. Short and a bit stumpy.
2/ Orange dress by World
At The Dowse I got a lot braver ... it has this amazing textile collection from the 70s and 80s and my eye was really getting attuned to this rambunctious way of using colour. Partly I was immersed in this art environment, I was getting paid a little bit more and I met this amazing woman called Katrina Smit who was one of the best, most joyful dressers, who would just berate me for wearing black. So I bought this bright orange dress, which I still have to be in a fairly confident mood to rock.
3/ PVC catsuit by Zambesi
Every so often I buy a piece and then I realise I'm not ready for it. I'm going to grow into Zambesi at some point. It still feels more sophisticated than I am. I have a fantasy that one day, I could be that person, with that intellectually curious way of dressing.
4/ Pleated skirt by Kate Sylvester
My "run the world" skirt. I did wear this to one of my Te Papa interviews and when I spoke at Webstock last year. I love that it is a safe shape, in a hard material and I love the way it swishes. I feel "my kind of elegant" in it. Short elegant, rather than tall elegant. It's really noticeable, but it doesn't shout. With my 40th birthday [marble block] heels from United Nude, it's probably my go-to "need to feel my most powerful self" combo. Oh, it's soo arty. It really is.
5/ Mother of pearl neckpieces by Chris Charteris and Warwick Freeman
I wear them with this super-restrained, pleated black chiffony dress. If I'm going on to a marae, I feel comfortable and respectful and like I'm conducting myself in a way that represents Te Papa well. I do love New Zealand jewellery and I like buying things by real people and knowing where the money is going.
6/ Blue patterned suit by World
Until going to Te Papa I don't think I owned any trousers except jeans. I've gone from none, to probably seven or eight pairs. And THE suit! This is an identity-building suit. I did wear it to two International Women's Day events - the British High Commissioner had her event and I knew, because Laura Clark is so glamorous, everyone was going to be dressed to the f***ing nines for that, so me, too. It's very tapered and tight-fitting. I feel very noticeable.
7/ Watches by Tissot
This is a vast generalisation, but older people, in particular, don't like it when you look at your phone during meetings. I'm more time conscious than I used to be and I have two watches - a quieter gold and a big silver.
Louise Sutherland is a Christchurch-based busineswoman who has most recently worked in the commercial property sector. Her Instagram account, @bonjela_lawson, chronicles a style evolution influenced by earthquakes and pandemics.
When I was about 13, I went to after-school drama classes to build up a bit of confidence. I learned the power of a costume and makeup. I feel very much, even today, that I "armour up". I'm me, but I'm still very protected and empowered in my outfits. It's like putting on a costume every day.
I was very shy and nervous and then when I was in the 6th form I made some friends who really embraced op-shopping. That's where I learned the ropes - that you don't need to follow any rules.
I was very much into music and pop culture and a lot of 60s influences. The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's, silk military jackets and big, shaggy coats. People like Jarvis Cocker, who I just worshipped. Velvet suits and stuff that was a bit older than me. David Bowie in Labyrinth and, in the UK, there used to be The Clothes Show on a Sunday night with big designers like Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano. I remember the pirate chic thing. The flamboyant and that mixture of masculine and feminine, soft and hard.
For most of my 20s, I was in a relationship with somebody who didn't appreciate that flamboyance. He kind of stifled it out of me a bit. And I wanted to conform ... you just want to be grown up and prove your place in the world. I can barely look back on photos, because I just feel bad for myself. You wouldn't recognise me, I was just trying so hard to fit in.
I've yo-yo dieted my whole life and I was encouraged to not be as comfortable in my body as I am now. I was crash-dieting like crazy and I guess you could look at photos and go, well, I was quite conventionally thin and I'd dyed my hair really blonde ... but in terms of style and spark, I wasn't anything like I am now. Style is more than body size and hair colour.
We broke up and that was when I really went gangbusters. I was about 28 and we'd just had the earthquake. My whole life changed. We lost our house, the suburb I grew up in was lost, it really felt like a reinvention. I took it as an opportunity to explore all the things I'd always been interested in but had been too timid.
The earthquake ... was just a world taken away from me. I think it does give you a slight sense of "you might as well seize the day, start wearing what you want". I wear Doc Martens everywhere, all the time now, even in the office. The days of wearing nice footwear around Christchurch have gone - cracked footpaths, gravel car parks. There was that idea, for the first year or two afterwards, you just want to be prepared if you've got to walk 10 kilometres home.
I moved here [from the United Kingdom] when I was 13 and I had an accent so I always stuck out. I'm a female in a very male-dominated work world and I was quite young when I started the practice, so I've never fit in. You'll never catch me in a grey two-piece with a white shirt underneath! But there are definite distinctions. Me at work, me in the weekend, me going out - they're different characters.
With my Instagram, I want to show other people what you can do and what's possible. I've always enjoyed seeing what people wear, especially interesting ways with vintage, or people with larger bodies and so forth.
I came out of lockdown and I was wearing my bright stuff and it just didn't feel right. I just suddenly needed to wear black. I was in this new phase of my career where I was a business owner and that was really challenging and I felt the need, even more, to create a persona. Previously, I would just think about colours and pattern. Now I have to think about layers and textures and shapes. If I walk into a room and I'm in dramatic layers of black, I think it's going to tell them I've grown up a bit.
In the past year, my life has changed a lot. I met the man of my dreams, I got married very quickly, we bought a house together and my whole life has really shifted ... I'm constantly evolving and I like that. I think you should evolve and shift. There's nothing worse getting stuck in a rut and dressing like how you've always dressed. Fashion is just fun and I think people get way too scared of it.
A STORY IN SEVEN PIECES - LOUISE SUTHERLAND
1/ Homemade, hand-dyed skirt and apron
I'm not a precise creative. I can make things for myself but probably not other people, because I rush and the hem's a bit gammy. I know in my head what I want but I can't find it anywhere or I don't want to pay $1000 for it. I've given up on patterns. I get to about instruction 11 and just zone out and do my own thing. With this outfit, it's like I'm a Scandinavian shop-keeping witch. A Studio Ghibli situation and I'm selling potions and grains to the adventurer. I made the skirt and apron during lockdown before I got into my black phase. They were blue and grey and I spent a whole Sunday dying them.
2/ Vintage cape from Trade Me
I believe very much in vintage clothing karma. If you let go of beautiful things, nice vintage things of your current style come back into your life. I let go of some good brightly coloured things I just knew I wasn't going to wear and then in one week, two black capes came my way. I like feeling like a dandy or sort of a spy or a vampire-twee-detective. And they're fun. Just like wearing a big blanket.
3/ Pants by Lucy and Yak
I'm trying to be a more conscientious shopper in terms of buying more Fair Trade, ethical and organic things. This is a UK company that pays a living wage to their manufacturers. In terms of me being brave in clothing, trousers are it for me. I actually bought a pair of black jeans last week, my first ever pair of Levi's. It was quite a monumental moment, in terms of this being a journey with my body. Jeans are often quite scary.
4/ A wedding dress (worn again for Valentine's Day) by Toast Clothing Studio
We had a surprise wedding at our house last September. As much as I love clothes and styling, I've never dreamed of a wedding or "The Dress". People get married and they don't just look or feel like them. I wanted to be me on my wedding day. My friend had a company where she made dresses out of vintage fabrics. So that's an old bedsheet. I did want something I could keep in my wardrobe and wear again.
5/ A hat from an op-shop
You'll always know that I've just re-watched When Harry Met Sally (AKA my favourite film ever) when I bring out the hats. The fashion in that film is just bang-on. People think it's just another rom-com but, I mean, Nora Ephron wrote it. I just happened to find that hat in an op-shop at lunchtime and it just all went together.
6/ An Outfit of the Day post from July, 2019
Trelise Cooper leopard print and pink coat, aqua tights, yellow sandals, red dress and multicoloured beads: I don't do subtle.
7/ Dungarees for the weekend
I really like being invisible in the weekends. I wear dungarees and fade into the background. I had some from the UK and I'd worn them out, so I made my own. No makeup, bare feet, dungarees and a merino. Toddler chic. I don't want to be dealing with waistbands and proper bras and things.
Second-hand clothing can be a reservoir for many potentially dangerous microbes.