Stories
A Culture of Ease: Black in New Zealand Fashion in the New Millenium
2000-2011
‘Black, black, black. They love it.’ So wrote Lisa Armstrong, fashion critic for the London Times in 2004, a lone pastel-clad figure at New Zealand Fashion Week surrounded by native fashionistas ‘in layers of black’.
Claiming that New Zealander’s blamed the weather for their ‘addiction to black’, Armstrong theorised that it was New Zealand’s attempt to differentiate itself from Sydney Fashion Week, ‘which it sees as a sort of Sodom-and-Gomorrah fleshpot of sin, showiness and sequins’. In European terms, she sweepingly concluded ‘Sydney is Milan and Auckland is Antwerp. Or put another way, Sydney is Paris Hilton and Auckland is Jean-Paul Sartre, without the lifelong existential crisis'(1).
While certainly the only person to compare Auckland to Jean-Paul Sartre, Armstrong was not the first to remark on the differences between the Australian and New Zealand fashion scenes, and New Zealanders’ preference for the darker shades of the colour spectrum. The comparisons had been made since the late 1990s, when New Zealand designers first began showing at Australian Fashion Week.
Karen Walker's little black dress with a broken string of pearls from her Spring/Summer 2000 'Etiquette' collection has become an instantly recognisable classic of New Zealand fashion. Photograph by Steven Tilley at the New Zealand Fashion Museum exhibition "Black in Fashion'. Garment loan courtesy of Karen Walker.
In 1997 Zambesi, Wallace Rose, World and Moontide swimwear took to the catwalk at the Mercedes Fashion Week in Sydney with the support of Trade New Zealand. While the Australians came under fire for taking body consciousness a step too far –Elsa Klensch, CNN’s influential TV fashion reporter declared the number of naked women on the runway ‘tiresome’ (2) – the New Zealand designers were lauded for their inventiveness. In particular, Zambesi’s ‘dark and moody combinations of wool pinstripe and black guipure lace and dazzling ivory and white layers’ (3) won plaudits, and sparked intrigue among the international contingent. Lee Tulloch of Elle wrote: ‘Although much more sombre than any of the other shows, Zambesi’s fantastically rich and inventive collection, coming on the heels of Wallace Rose’s lovely dresses, makes me wonder about New Zealand and the depth of creative talent there’ (4).
The following year Nicholas Blanchet, Kate Sylvester, Karen Walker and Workshop joined the original four. Zambesi received a standing ovation, and Nicholas Blanchet’s menswear show became the talk of the week after he sent models down the catwalk with black-ringed eyes and branded mouth guards in a parody on New Zealand’s rugby obsession and a nod to the collection’s sportswear influences (5). In an article entitled ‘The Other All Blacks’ Miriam Cosic of The Australian announced ‘the Kiwi invasion is here' (6). Maggie Alderson of the Sydney Morning Herald declared that the word was out that New Zealand was ‘the new Belgium’ (7) and Zambesi was declared to be ‘New Zealand’s answer to Dries van Noten’ (8). Such praise referenced the legendary ‘Antwerp Six’ who took the fashion world unexpectedly by storm in 1987 at London's British Designer Show (9). They were revered for their creative individuality, but also for their ‘humility, sobriety and daring’ (10).
Marcus von Ackermann, the fashion director for Vogue Paris, noted a ‘remarkable difference between New Zealand and Australia’, and observed: ‘New Zealanders have a darker outlook, less show-offy, more intellectual’ (11).
Not surprisingly, von Ackermann’s observation quickly became the New Zealand fashion media’s most quotable quote.
In 1998 Karen Walker presented Live Wire at Australian Fashion Week. The collection was inspired by Auckland’s ‘black out’. Walker used black garments as a canvas for a series of electricity inspired prints. Photograph by Peter Bannan. Courtesy of Karen Walker.
In particular von Ackermann admired Karen Walker's collection Live Wire, which was inspired by the 1998 Auckland power crisis. While New Zealand’s largest city grappled with the humiliation and economic ramifications of the blackout, Walker transformed the crisis into a witty collection, sending frizzy haired models trailing electrical cords down the runway dressed in a range of black and white garments, including slouchy pants andsimple black dresses featuring bright yellow chandelier prints and raw frayed edges. A black knit, patterned to represent the impact of electrocution, elicited instant applause as soon as it hit the catwalk (12). Von Ackermann wrote: ‘It managed to combine edgy, Gothic, sartorial wit with pure modern elegance and, above all, it was impeccably finished. It was utterly divine' (13).
1998 was a milestone year for Karen Walker. Prior to Sydney Fashion Week, Walker had shown her first full collection, Daddy’s Gone Strange, at the Asia Pacific Young Fashion Designers Show in Hong Kong. Inspired by her father’s decision to join an inventor’s club, she took the ‘clothes that conservative New Zealand father’s wear’ and gave them a ‘new twist’ (14). The twist included deconstructed suits in black wool with visible basting, uneven seams and tailor’s markings. For the catwalk she teamed the collection with white gumboots, an inexpensive solution to uniform footwear, and a familiar, if grizzly reference to the abattoir. The question begged, ‘how strange had daddy gone?’
In 1999 Karen Walker, Zambesi, NOM*d and World were invited to show at London Fashion Week. Packaged as the ‘New Zealand Four’, they were sponsored by Trade New Zealand, Brand New Zealand and Wools of New Zealand. The four very different collections received high praise and the New Zealand media went into overdrive (15). The inevitable question of ‘a New Zealand Look’ arose. In response, von Ackermann’s words were ceased upon as a collective description – ‘dark and intellectual’. Post-London, Walker, confident, articulate and media savvy, and whose work was most viewed as reflecting ‘the darker tones’ of New Zealand, was sought after for her opinion (16). Walker commented:
"Take The Piano, Colin McCahon’s paintings, our work, and even [songwriter] Neil Finn – there’s a heavy, ominous, slightly restrained kind of feel. And I think that comes from our culture and our landscape and just the personality of the country. There’s a heaviness to it." (17).
Walker’s reasoning reflected current thinking about the nature of much of New Zealand’s cultural production. The international success of films such as The Piano (1993) by Jane Campion and Peter Jackson’s murderous Heavenly Creatures (1994), and Sam Neill’s personal response to New Zealand film The Cinema of Unease (1995), captured both local and international imaginations. Describing New Zealand film as ‘a uniquely strange and dark industry’, Neill concluded that ‘if national cinema is a reflection of ourselves, ours is a troubled one indeed’ (18). In 1998 American writer William Schafer published Mapping the Godzone: A Primer on New Zealand Literature and Culture in which he too observed that ‘the presence of the gothic mode are among striking first impressions of modern New Zealand literature and film’ (19). It was not long before fashion got bundled into New Zealand’s dark offerings, despite the proliferation of pattern and colour that spilled happily from the workrooms of designers such as World, Helen Cherry, Trelise Cooper and increasingly from Karen Walker.
As Australian writer Jennifer Craik argues ‘a national sense of style or fashion is the expressive encapsulation of the cultural zeitgeist of a place through its people that occurs when three realms are synchronised: aesthetics, cultural practice and cultural articulation’ (20). At the turn of the century such a zeitgeist was occurring in New Zealand, and the government seized upon fashion as a means of ‘marketing a contemporary image of New Zealand to the world' (21). Brand New Zealand’s position that ‘New Zealand’s edge lies in an independent spirit that celebrates fresh, creative and unconventional thinking’ (22) reflected what critics at Australian and London fashion weeks saw in the New Zealand designers. Brand New Zealand’s brand was black. Such branding capitalised on the already familiar association of black with New Zealand through sport (All Blacks, Black Caps, Black Magic), while channelling black’s historic association with creativity. As Fashion Quarterly once sniffed, black is ‘the colour most often worn by those who fancy themselves as creatives or intellectuals’ (23). The New Zealand government had such a fancy.
For New Zealand’s fashion designers, the use of black had nothing to do with nationalism, and everything to do with its formal and conceptual properties. As the celebrated French designer Christian Lacroix eloquently stated, there is ‘a whole world even in a small patch of black’ (24). A world both material and imaginary.
Black worlds
For many contemporary New Zealand designers such as World, who view black as ‘an accessory’ to heighten the impact of their bold use of colour, a patch of black is often more than enough.(25) For a small group of high profile New Zealand designers, however, black has, to quote Edmonde Charles-Roux on Coco Chanel, become the ‘instrument’ of their success (26).
Positioning themselves of New Zealand fashion’s provocateurs and clowns, World are renowned for their daring use of colour. While they too were drawn to the iconic Goth Girl for their 2002 collection, The Empire Strikes Back, and even painted some of the models pitch black, bright colour ran riot throughout the collection. Photograph by Brad Hick.
Internationally the 1980s witnessed a ‘momentous surge of black’ in fashion (27). At its centre were three avant-garde Japanese designers – Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto. Their dark, loose and deconstructed garments, which aimed to emphasise women as intellectual rather than sexual beings, startled the fashion world in 1981 and had a far-reaching impact (28). Black was central to each designer’s practice. Yamamoto’s ‘unrelenting black-on-black aesthetic earned his devotees the nickname karasuzoku – the crow tribe’ (29). Kawakubo became known as ‘the woman who took the colour out of fashion’ (30). As black, hand in hand with minimalism, came to dominate the international market into the 1990s, New Zealand was not immune (31).
Elisabeth Findlay of Zambesi came under the spell of the Japanese designers during her formative years as a designer in the 1980s. Her signature style emerged as a distillation of the Japanese aesthetics of asymmetry and deconstruction with a life-long love of beautiful fabrics and vintage clothing. Since the mid-1980s, black has provided ‘the backbone’ of Zambesi’s collections (32). Though Findlay is always on the lookout for new innovative fabrics in black, black silk georgettes, viscose, wool felts, jerseys and traditional suiting remain constants. This sense of continuity is essential to Findlay’s philosophy as she views Zambesi as a single, evolving collection, and frequently mixes designs from her three decades of practice. While colour flows throughout Zambesi’s collections – much more so than is frequently acknowledged – she sees black as providing ‘purity and endurance’ (33).
Elisabeth Findlay of Zambesi styles ‘Loose Reference’, a spider-web cotton lace dress with ‘Modern Love’, a laser-cut dress in cotton sweat-shirting, creating an intriguing web of texture, depth and movement, 2009. Image courtesy of Zambesi.
Creating individual pieces that come together through styling, Findlay’s ‘visceral pleasure in texture’ comes to the fore when working black on black.(34) Contrasting textures and weights, hard with soft, changes in depth and tone and the plays of light and movement, Findlay skilfully creates complex and engaging studies in black. It is this possibility of riches that attracts many designers to the study of black.
Lela Jacobs, a Wellington based designer who launched her first collection in 2009 is a connoisseur of black – of cold blacks with a blue base, of faded and textured blacks, of blacks in natural fibres. Happy to admit that she finds colour a challenge, ‘the need to master texture’ has been a strong driving factor behind Jacob’s use of black, which she describes as her teacher (35). Says Jacobs:
The fabric comes first and design second with most of my work so when you start combining rich, textural fibres, i.e. hand-knitted possum and merino with Japanese silks and Italian linens – all in black with a splash of leather, for example – this is one of the most satisfying aesthetics. If you were to take this same process and do it in colour it would be about the colour and the textures and true fibres would not get the attention they deserve. (36)
Philosophically she relates her interest in black as a way of gaining a deeper understanding of the Japanese concept of wabi sabi – the ‘beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete ... of things modest and humble ... of things unconventional’.(37)
Lela Jacobs sculpts an inventive and protective shield of textured blacks in this campaign image for Experimental Extinctions, Winter 2010. Photograph by Kelly Thompson. Courtesy of Lela Jacobs.
In retail stores Jacobs’ garments frequently intermingle with those of another devotee of black, James Dobson of Jimmy D. Whereas Jacobs’ interest lies in texture, Dobson’s lies in volume:
I’m drawn towards big, fabric-filled shapes; I love seeing women glide down the street with a mist of material around them. I always visualise clothing in motion, I love drape, and I love having a garment sweep seductively over the form of the body and then swing wildly away from it. As a designer that’s so focused on volume and the sculptural aspects of a garment, I can only visualise these shapes in black – there is no distraction, it’s the quintessential anti-colour colour ... Black ... in my mind never overpowers.(38)
Conceptually, black provides Dobson with a ‘tangle of themes and emotions to unravel’.
Black Sheep, rebels and outsiders
‘Black is dramatic and plays to the gallery, as the costuming of revolt must always do.’
- Elizabeth Wilson (39).
Intrigued by the darker aspects of life, James Dobson of Jimmy D drew inspiration from the controversial world of Norwegian black metal for his Winter 2011 collection 'Until the Light Takes Us'. Photograph by Brad Hick.
Seeking to empower the women who wear his designs, Dobson creates with a female character in mind. For his 2011 collection Until the Light Takes Us, she took the form of an ‘Über-Goth Girl’, whom he dressed in no-nonsense sports-inspired underwear and diaphanous flowing garments in black and white silk. The latter features haunting prints by artist Andrew McLeod, a member of metal band Evil Ocean. McLeod introduced Dobson to the world of Norwegian black metal from which the collection takes its name (40). Dobson’s collection in turn inspired a short film by Oliver Rose, in which he places Jimmy D’s goth girl in an etheral world of black metal imagery, ‘creation theories and alchemy’, where light verses dark, and strength verses fragility (41).
Dobson’s Über-Goth is one of a gallery of Goth Girls that populates New Zealand fashion, which from the advent of the Australian and New Zealand fashion weeks became highly narrative based. Narratives require characters (not just colour and fabric stories), and the best characters come from the wrong side of the tracks. Among the panoply of black sheep, rebels and outsiders, the Goth Girl, both urban and environmental, has had a particular allure for New Zealand designers, stylists and photographers.
In 1998, emergent designer Natalija Kucija impressed critics with her ‘futuristic, goth-inspired’ label (42). Utilising black fabrics that either had texture or a shine, including vinyl, the Auckland-based designer drew her inspiration from 1970s European cinema, in particular the surrealist films of Luis Buñuel and Italian thrillers of Dario Argento. Says Kucija:
What I liked about these films was nothing was 'obvious', they challenged you to use your imagination and intellect. This is what I hoped to achieve in my designing ... that there is always more than meets the eye, nothing is as it seems.
Black was a natural fit with Kucija’s aspiration. It is:
mysterious ... a contradiction. It is a 'nothing' colour, yet it has all the colours in it. It has depth, although appears vacuous at the same time ... you can be subtle and blend into the crowd wearing black yet on closer inspection, if the garment was cut in an interesting or challenging way you could become dramatic.
Described as futuristic and goth inspired, Natalija Kucija favoured black fabrics with strong surface textures such as velvet, or shine like vinyl, satin and cotton sateen. Photograph by Peter Bannan. Courtesy of Natalija Kucija.
When Fashion Quarterly’s editors advised readers that it was time to ‘turn to the dark side’ or ‘to wear the new black’, they recommended Kucija (43). In 2000 her ‘Asphyxia Dress’ made the cover, the model’s gap-toothed smile negating the sinister nature of the dress’ high collar (44).
While Dobson and Kucija channelled European cultural influences into their work, other designers have drawn on local references. In 2009 Kate Sylvester wove a collection around Judith ‘Black Lips’ Baragwanath, a former model-cum-café queen and sharp tongued wit, renowned for her idiosyncratic mode of dress in the 1980s. Sylvester remembers,
As a teenager growing up in Auckland I would scour the Felicity Ferrit gossip column for news of the infamous Black Lips Baragwanath and her café society friends. I knew she wore black lipstick. I knew she was beautiful. I knew she wore gym slips, trench coats and men’s shoes. I knew her posh Remuera friends were scandalised by her punk boyfriend. I knew Auckland was scandalized by her full stop. I knew there was no one like her (45).
Image 1: In 2009 Kate Sylvester launched Diamond Dogs, a collection inspired by Judith ‘Black Lips’ Baragwanath and her circle of friends, the Diamond Dogs. Photograph by Danelle Bohane. Courtesy of Kate Sylvester. Image 2: In the 1970s Judith Baragwanath could be seen on a Friday night parading around Queen St dressed in this mini leather trenchcoat and cloche. Photoograph by Stephen Tilleyat the New Zealand Fashion Museum in 2011 exhibition 'Black in Fashion'. Loan courtesy of Judith Baragwanath.
Black was central to Sylvester’s collection, but not dominant. Finding excitement in black when it is mixed with other colours rather than solitary, Sylvester combined structured blacks and khaki with blush pink, powder blue and nudes to create a rebellious collection of contrasts. The last time that Sylvester had used so much black was in 2005, when Nick Cave’s love song ‘Into Your Arms’ gave rise to a collection inspired by ‘grieving widows in dishevelled suits; angst ridden teens crying into crumpled ball frocks; the spurned lover wrapped in her ex-boyfriend’s over-sized shirt’ (46). Her models took to the catwalk with smudged mascara and tissues.
Within the Gothic genre, the Victorian gothic has had particular appeal in New Zealand. At 2002 New Zealand Fashion Week Nicholas Blanchet presented The Other Side, a romantic collection inspired by Victorian funeral rituals. Having trained at Wellington Polytechnic, Blanchet set up business in Dunedin, a city renowned for its Gothic Revival architecture, its ‘gothic feeling and a weird darkness you just don’t get anywhere else’ (47). The collection included prints was based on the wrought iron fencing of a local cemetery, and funerary iconography such as pair of clasped hands – a symbol of final farewell. Interested in the cut, finish and ‘creation of an interesting silhouette’ rather than colour, Blanchet rendered the collection in black, cream, brown and red (48).
Nicholas Blanchet launched The Other Side, a collection inspired by Victorian funeral iconography at New Zealand Fashion Week, 2002. Prints included crosses, wrought iron fencing and the words ‘Sacred’ and ‘Scared’ printed in Gothic type. Photograph by Brad Hick.
Boasting a small but high-profile cluster of independent designers, Dunedin is also celebrated as a cold and isolated hotbed of fashion.(49) At its centre is Margarita Robertson of NOM*d, the sister of Zambesi’s Elisabeth Findlay, and whom one journalist has crowned ‘The Queen of Darkness’ (50).
Robertson founded NOM*d in 1986. For the first 15 years in business she focused on directional knitwear in a limited colour range – ‘black, always, then a dark red or aubergine, school greys and various shades of blue’ (51). Like Findlay, Robertson had been immensely impressed by Kawakubo and Yamamoto. The Japanese association of black with peasant and work wear coincided with her own interest in uniforms and utilitarian clothing (52). At London Fashion Week in February 1999 Robertson showed black knits, accented with flashes of red, teamed with white skirts based on bowling uniforms.
At London Fashion Week in September 1999, NOM*d presented New Kimono. The collection was described by the Daily Mail as ‘a bit Amish, a bit modern Japanese, and wholly romantic’. Photograph by Brad Hick.
Black has lost none of its allure for Robertson, who in 2010 commented, ‘We use a lot of black and I still maintain that it’s the colour I love and work with the best’.(53) Formally, the attraction for Robertson lies in black’s unique ability to create a silhouette, whether using one layer or multiple. It is the silhouette more than anything that attracts Robertson’s eye, whose Autumn/Winter 2005 collection This Is Not A Love Song was inspired by shadows and the doppelgangers they create (54).
In part the designer credits her self-described ‘noir-ish aesthetic’ to her home town of Dunedin and its ‘preternaturally gothic atmosphere’ (55). She also says:
There’s definitely a Gothic thing going on with us, which I think comes from being based in Dunedin – that sense of being part of a sub-culture and coming from the place that the Dunedin Sound happened. Our clothes have never been about looking flash. They’re more to do with looking cool (56).
Firmly positioning NOM*d as a ‘fashion outsider’ (57), its sense of noir is creatively and humorously played out through the company’s website, campaign photography and fashion shows cum theatrical extravaganzas for an industry hungry for narrative and drama. Channelling the melodramas of teenage angst, sad songs and tortured souls, NOM*d’ declares that its ‘emotional range has always been more comfortable eschewing the obvious joys of life in favour of our hearts shadowy recesses’ (58). In 2010 in a moment of self-mockery, NOM*d declared that they had tired of the ‘vogue for doom and gloom’. For the collection Finding Cheerfulness they went in pursuit of sunshine, allowing watermelon and mandarin to blaze out from the ‘grey wreckage of the recession’ (59). As with Zambesi, colour weaves in and out of NOM*d’s collections. NOM*d’s most surprising foray into colour? Yellow with ‘Smurf’ turquoise in Autumn/Winter 2005.
For the launch of their Winter 2011 collection Danse Macabre at New Zealand Fashion Week, NOM*d eschewed the catwalk in favour of a ‘post apocalyptic’ theatrical performance in an off-site warehouse. Photograph by Brad Hick.
‘So why then, do we see everybody in black?’
‘Black has become as habitual as denim.’
- Rei Kawakubo (60).
On 3 November 2009 fashion blogger Isaac Hinden Miller of Isaac Likes posted the ‘Black Debate’ (61). The post was spurred by a re-reading of Stacy Gregg’s book Undressed in which she vividly described the turn of the century fervour surrounding the rise of New Zealand’s ‘dark and intellectual’ designers. After a quick review of recent collections by Zambesi, NOM*d, Karen Walker and Kate Sylvester, Miller noted the presence of ‘plenty of colour’, and asked his readers, ‘So why then, do we see everybody in black?’
A stroll through Wellington mid-winter confirms Miller’s observation about the proliferation of black. The city can be navigated by its different modes of blacks. Lambton Quay and the Terrace presents a sea of respectable corporate black. Cuba Street, lined with cafés, band venues and sex shops, reveals the blacks of revolt – black stovepipe jeans, leather and studs teamed with Doc Martins, shiny piercings and inky tattoos. At the City Gallery, the black is expensive and arty. On Courtenay Place in the wee hours, it’s all sexed up. Even ‘Blanket Man’, Courtney Place’s resident homeless, is shrouded in black.
Miller’s question sparked a lively stream of theories from his readers, from the practical – it hides stains, is easy to mend, it’s slimming and goes with everything – to meditations on the New Zealand psyche. ‘R’ thought it was ‘reflective of a lingering Puritanism’ while ‘Carbunkle’ staunchly argued that it is a way of disavowing the ‘established norms and tropes of fashion, e.g. colour, pattern ... that we are dark and subversive and not ever going to be “on trend”’. ‘Oldgirl’, reflecting on school uniforms, proffered that ‘black makes us feel still part of a group’.(62)
A culture of ease
‘If I catch myself in the mirror wearing a colour I tend to scare myself.’
- Margarita Robertson (63).
Lisa Armstrong argued that New Zealanders aren’t temperamentally suited to black.(64) Her article was entitled ‘Black belies Kiwi’s sunny nature’. New Zealanders’ ‘addiction’ to black is not so much reflection of a dark psyche, as romantically appealing that may be, but more about comfort, a utilitarian approach to clothing and a rejection of disposable fashion. Black is a form of anti-fashion. Associating black with endurance, Elisabeth Findlay aims to select fabrics ‘valid outside of any fashion trend’.(65) James Dobson finds colour ‘loaded with such boring practicalities. Does this colour suit me? Will this colour date?’, and periodically includes a burst of colour in a collection for that very purpose – to anchor the collection in a moment in time.(66) Where black is associated with timelessness, colour seems to have become time bound. To this end, World like to encourage their customers to explore ‘colour and shape to constantly re-define herself each season’.(67)
‘A lot of women here have a problem standing out. That’s why a lot wear black, because it’s safe.’ (68)
- Annie Bonza
While it’s more fun to play up black’s dangerous reputation, black has long been ‘the shade of eternal security’.(69) Both James Dobson and Lela Jacobs describe black as a form of shield. Jacobs observes that ‘you need to be truly interested in a true wearer of black to be willing to look closer’.(70) She sees black as providing a filter between the wearer and the world, and most importantly as a way of freeing the mind to focus on other things beyond fashion. ‘It is not about what you are wearing but more that you are at least wearing something.’ For Jacobs, black creates a ‘culture of ease’.
Text by Claire Regnault.
Cover image: Lela Jacobs sculpts an inventive and protective shield of textured blacks in this campaign image for Experimental Extinctions, Winter 2010. Photograph by Kelly Thompson. Courtesy of Lela Jacobs.
This essay was originally published in Black: The history of Black in Fashion, Society and Culture in New Zealand curated by Doris de Pont ONZM, as an accompaniment to our exhibition, Black in Fashion: Wearing the colour black in New Zealand.
Footnotes:
1. Armstrong, Louise, ‘Black belies Kiwi’s sunny nature’, The Times, 27 October 2004, p. 12
2. Mackay, Janetta, ‘Applause! Applause!’, The New Zealand Herald, 14 May 1997.
3. De Teliga, Jane, ‘Two designers, two examples of the rich fabric of life’, Paul Blomfield Archive.
4. Quoted in Sayers Wickstead, Christina, ‘Sydney Showdown’, Fashion Quarterly, Spring 1997.
5. Gregg, Stacy, Undressed: New Zealand Fashion Designers Tell Their Stories, Penguin, 2003, p. 166.
6. Cosic, Miriam, ‘The Other All Blacks’, The Australian Magazine, 9–10 May 1998, p. 40.
7. Alderson, Maggie, ‘NZ style is fashion’s hot tip’, Sydney Morning Herald, May 1998. Clipping. Paul Blomfield
Archive.
8. UK Observer, 25 May 1997, p. 24. Paul Blomfield Archive.
9. The ‘Antwerp Six’ comprised Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Walter Van Beirendonck, Marina Yee, Dirk Van Saene and Dirk Bikkemberg.
10. Debo, Kaat, ‘Belgian Fashion’, The Berg Fashion Library, 2005, [online] available http://www.bergfashionlibrary.com/view/bazf/bazf00066.xml (accessed 22 July 2011).
11. Quoted in Schaer, Cathrin, ‘Clash of the Cultures’, Fashion Quarterly, Winter 2000, p. 134.
12. Alderson, Maggie, ‘The week that was ...’, Marie Claire Australia, undated clipping. Paul Blomfield Archive.
13. http://www.newzealand.com/travel/media/features/fashion/fashion_karen-walker_feature.cfm (accessed 14 June 2011).
14. Lassig, Angela, New Zealand Fashion Design, Te Papa Press, Wellington, 2010, p. 137.
15. Hammonds, Lucy, ‘Search for Style’ in Hammonds, L et al., The Dress Circle: New Zealand Fashion Design Since 1940, Random House, 2010, p. 331.
16. Fitzgerald, Michael, ‘Southern Gothic’, Time, 24 May 1999.
17. Quoted in Karen Walker quoted in Fitzgerald, Michael, ‘Southern Gothic’, Time, 24 May 1999. Walker proffered a similar opinion during In an interview with Mike Hosking and Linda Clark on television’s Crossfire, and again in a promotional DVD produced by Creative New Zealand ,which aimed at positioning New Zealand as a uniquely creative country.
18. Neill, Sam, Cinema of Unease, Top Shelf Productions Ltd, 1995.
19. Schafer, William, Mapping the Godzone: A Primer on New Zealand Literature and Culture, University of Hawaii Press, 1998, p. 137.
20. Craik, Jennifer, ‘Is Australian Fashion and Dress Distinctively Australian?’ Fashion Theory, vol. 13, issue 4, p. 413.
21. Molloy, Maureen, ‘Cutting Edge Nostalgia: New Zealand Fashion Design at the New Millennium’, Fashion Theory, vol. 8, Issue 4, p. 477.
22. Ministry of Economic Development, Evaluation of Brand New Zealand – Research, Evaluation and Monitoring Team Industry and Regional Development Branch, January 2006.
23. 'Monochrome Madness’, Fashion Quarterly, Spring 1996, p. 184.
24. Quoted in ‘Back to Black’, Fashion Quarterly, Autumn 2006, p. 144.
25. Personal correspondence, 18 July 2011.
26. Quoted in Mendes, Valerie, Dressed in Black, V&A, London, 1999, p. 16.
27. Mendes, Valerie, Dressed in Black, V&A, London, 1999, p. 16.
28. Wilcox, Claire, ‘Comme des Garçons’, The Berg Fashion Library, 2005, [online] available http://www.bergfashionlibrary.com/view/bazf/bazf00135.xml (accessed 23 July 2011).
29. Mears, Patricia, ‘Yamamoto, Yohji’, The Berg Fashion Library, 2005, [online] available http://www.bergfashionlibrary.com/view/bazf/bazf00651.xml (accessed 23 July 2011).
30. Mendes, Valerie, Dressed in Black, V&A, London, 1999, p. 17.
31. Ibid., pp. 17–18.
32. Personal correspondence, 26 July 2011.
33. Ibid.
34. Margo White quoted in Lassig, Angela, New Zealand Fashion Design, Te Papa Press, Wellington, 2010, p. 35.
35. ‘A Stitch in Time’, Fashion Quarterly, Summer, 2010/11, p. 139.
36. Personal correspondence, 18 July 2011.
37. Koren, Leonard, author of Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. http://www.leonardkoren.com/
38. Personal correspondence, 7 July 2011.
39. Wilson, Elizabeth, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, Virago, London, 1985, p. 189.
40. Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell directed a documentary on Norwegian black metal called Until the Light Takes Us (Variance Films, 2008).
41. ‘Jimmy D shows Until the Light Takes Us in Wellington as collection hits stores’, 19 April 2011, Lucire Insider. http://lucire.com/insider/20110419/jimmy-d-shows-until-the-light-takes-us-in-wellington-as-autumnwinter-11-hits-stores/ (accessed 14 July 2011).
42. ‘A–Z of New Zealand Fashion’, Fashion Quarterly, Summer 2001, p. 103.
43. ‘Black Magic’, Fashion Quarterly, Spring 2001, p. 34 and ‘Dark Angel’, Fashion Quarterly, Autumn 2003, p. 43.
44. Cover, New Zealand Fashion Quarterly, Winter, 2000.
45. Press release for Kate Sylvester, Diamond Dogs, Winter 2010.
46. Bates, Joanna, ‘Back to Black’, New Zealand Fashion Quarterly, Autumn 2006, p. 144.
47. Tansley, Rebecca, ‘Dunedin’, New Zealand Fashion Quarterly, Summer 1998, p. 96.
48. Gregg, Stacy, Undressed: New Zealand Fashion Designers Tell Their Stories, Penguin, 2003, p. 170.
49. Ibid.
50. Tansley, Rebecca, ‘Queen of Darkness’, North & South, 1 March 2008, issue 264, pp. 48–53.
51. Lassig, Angela, New Zealand Fashion Design, Te Papa Press, 2010, p. 277.
52. Ibid., p. 282.
53. Oakley Smith, Mitchell, Fashion: Australian and New Zealand Designers, Thames & Hudson, Australia, 2010, p. 262.
54. http://www.nomd.co.nz/main.html (accessed 4 July 2011).
55. Ibid.
56. Gregg, Stacy, Undressed: New Zealand Fashion Designers Tell Their Stories, Penguin, 2003, p. 49.
57. http://www.nomd.co.nz/main.html (accessed 4 July 2011).
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. http://www.interviewmagazine.com/fashion/rei-kawakubo/ (accessed 13 July 2011).
61. http://www.isaaclikes.com/2009/11/911-black-debate.html, Tuesday 3 November, # 911 (accessed 30 July 2011).
62. Ibid.
63. Gregg, Stacy, Undressed: New Zealand Fashion Designers Tell Their Stories, Penguin, 2003, p. 49.
64. Armstrong, Louise, ‘Black belies Kiwi’s sunny nature’, The Times, 27 October 2004, p. 12.
65. Lassig, Angela, New Zealand Fashion Design, Te Papa Press, Wellington, 2010, p. 35.
66. Personal correspondence, 7 July 2011.
67. Ibid., 18 July 2011.
68. ‘Material World’, Planet, Issue 15, Summer 1994, p. 38.
69. Mendes, Valerie, Dressed in Black, V&A, London, 1999, p. 19.
70. Personal correspondence, 18 July 2011.
