Oscar de la Renta, Versace, Valentino, Gucci, Escada ... They’re labels you’d expect to see on the red carpet in Hollywood, rather than stashed away in a home in Mission Bay.
Now several of these luxury pieces are under the custodianship of jewellery designer and stylist Anoushka Van Rijn, after her husband’s grandmother, Corallie Eagle, died in April last year.
Anoushka says she hadn’t realised the extent of Corallie’s collection until the Eagle family invited her to pore over five bedrooms’ worth of garments and select a few items to keep.
“Her wardrobe blew my mind,” says Anoushka, an avid vintage collector herself. “She never threw anything away. What I saw there was a deeper layer of her that I hadn’t experienced when she was alive, that I strongly related to.”
Corallie was a mother of seven and a charismatic force behind Eagle Technology, the IT company she and her late husband Trevor Eagle set up more than 50 years ago. Though some of her expensive taste was cultivated reading Vogue and Vanity Fair, Anoushka says Corallie had an innate sense of style.
A former seamstress, she’d made her family’s clothes, along with dresses and hats, some of which she’d wear at the many high-profile business and social events she attended.
“She was bold, and everybody knew it,” says Anoushka. “And incredibly graceful, very intentional. She approached business with endurance, perseverance and tenacity, and she did it with impeccable classic style.”
Whether popping over to Corallie’s Mission Bay home for a cup of tea or “speed-shopping” with her in Hawaii, the pair bonded over their mutual love of fashion. Locally, Corallie loved Adrienne Winkelmann, particularly her suits. Otherwise her favourite place to shop was Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.
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“She called herself ‘the shark shopper’,” Anoushka laughs. “She’d go round all the shops on the first day, like she was stealthily hunting for pieces, and the next day she’d go out and strike.”
Given her husband Brook was “incredibly close” to his grandmother, and knowing Corallie supported her entrepreneurial endeavours, Anoushka wanted to create an homage to Corallie by “celebrating her creativity through my creativity”.
Modelling and styling the clothes herself, she worked with a team to shoot them in the house Corallie had designed and lived in. With its Louis XV furniture, ornate Italian marble floors and sweeping staircase, the house, which is now on the market, speaks to the Eagle couple’s grandness of vision and taste for the finer things.
Anoushka has since incorporated Corallie’s designer pieces into her own personal collection, some of which she hires out through her business, A Stylist’s Wardrobe, an intimate personal dressing experience she likens to hanging out in a girlfriend’s wardrobe.
While there’s arguably less of an audience for such high-end pieces given these staying-in times, Anoushka says she started the personal styling and hireage business for an increasingly credit-crunched luxury fashion market. The timelessness of the designs, she adds, means they can be styled to the individual no matter the occasion.
“I love having my friends over and going through my pieces and lending out my garments for friends to borrow, so I thought why don’t I share this with the community? It’s not every day you have access to pieces that are so special and beautiful.”
Photography / Maegan McDowell. Makeup / Rebekah Banks. Hair / Kelly Manu. Creative direction, styling and modelling / Anoushka Van Rijn and @Astylistswardrobe_
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Advertise with NZME.To check out the collection, visit Anoushkavanrijn.com
