The NZFM Open Day was an opportunity to share the decolonising kaupapa (principles) of our museum model with a local audience and the international assembly, invite them to engage with how we do our mahi (work), and to experience it first hand and in a real space. Our primary source for all content is the community; this makes for a collaborative and multi-vocal museum model, bringing together objects and knowledge held by individuals and by working with institutions like libraries, universities, and museums to share their collections, archives, and spaces. Listen in as fashion academic Jennifer Whitty talks to Doris de Pont about the Fashion Museum. 

On Saturday 12 October 2024, the New Zealand Fashion Museum occupied a physical space at the Auckland Central Library. We gathered for a day of hands-on activities that took attendees behind our online presence and mahi. The day offered first-hand experience of the museum’s exhibition making, opportunities to engage with our kaupapa and participatory workshops that cover archival researching, collection preparation, documenting, building relationships with our clothing and above all, storytelling.

Attendance was free, and we enjoyed hosting a day of activities and experiences which share our processes and values in person and as our contribution to the vast array of GFA24 events happening around the world.

We documented the goings-on of the day in this long-form video presentation, which we shared with the broader online community of the RCDF and Global Fashioning Assembly on October 19th 2024.  

Event Programme

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Event activities

Popup photography session with Denise Baynham

A volunteer puts the finishing touches on a garment to be shot.

Join us as we bring our garment documentation process out of the photo studio and into the Research Central space on Level 2 of the Auckland Central City Library, with photographer Denise Baynham. We chat to her about what she looks for, pays attention to, and considers when shooting garments to show them off in their best light. 

We invited people to bring garments to share with us and be photographed. On the day we also interview the garment contributor about their garment - history, why they have kept it, where it was worn, ‘value’ et al, original use and original photographs as well, to share a more in-depth look at how we collect and share not only the physical aspects of collection garments but also the social and personal provenance attached to their item.

When Clothes Become our Friends - Workshop series

A multi-faceted workshop series that explores our relationship with clothing.

When Clothes Become Our Friends is a curated journey for wearer participants. An adventure through 4 stages led by Jennifer Whitty and Karishma Singh Kelsey.

Provocation: Imagine a world where we understand how deeply life is lived in clothes. If we accept our clothes as friends, who enrich our lives, how would it change our behaviour with our clothes? How would we speak to them, & care for them? What kind of compliments would we give each other if our clothes had feelings and could hear us? We simply ask for you to join us, in your clothed body, with an open mind, heart, and spirit.

Hopes and Aspirations: These series of actions aim to help us profoundly rethink and recalibrate our relationship to fashion, at a time when the logic of the linear, industrial system is failing us all on a monumental scale - limiting our ability to feel, think and be with our clothes. We hope to build practices based on joy, and care to enable us to use new words, create new stories and forge new relationships with and through our clothing.

Stage 1: Wearers sign up at the Library entrance for a personalised Clothing-Friendship Programme with the Clothing Support Workers . This will take the form of an interactive clothing/treasure- hunt across the library. Wearers will be assigned a particular role and will be given a menu of options to guide their experience. They will be asked to act, do, find and interact with other wearers in the library, to document their key insights as part of their transformative journey of unlearning, relearning, and becoming friends with clothes. Clothing Support Workers will guide and support workers throughout the library and capture key insights to share in the Event Space. 

Stage 2: Listen to the Clothes Speak: Unlearning, Relearning, and Becoming Through Clothing. A follow-up series of speculative fun, imaginative activities that will amplify and deepen the work begun as part of the Clothing-Friendship Programme as we continue to explore the wisdom of the clothing that lies quietly on our bodies. We will collectively share insights from the interactive clothing/treasure- hunt. In teams, participants will be given prompts and tools, to create speculative scenarios to forge new relationships across the human-non-human world. Aim: We will create a tapestry of new language, vocabulary & tools to share that will deepen our relationship with our clothing friends.

Stage 3: Karishma Singh Kelsey guides you towards reconnection and remembering through the meditative art of dressing as a form of conscious creative expression of self. How to Prepare for the Workshop Easy! Bring those favourite pieces that need a refresh, that bold item you’ve been too shy to wear, or something you wish you loved but don’t—yet, clothes you have always hoped you could wear but have shied away from. Come dressed as your most creative self and bring a journal and pen. The Journey Begins (30 minutes): Introduction to Style Activism and the Miraculous Me Manifesto, Ancestral acknowledgements, and grounding meditation, connecting us to our clothes. Phase 2 Colours of the Soul (30 minutes): Interactive exploration. Colour as a superpower. Phase 2.3: Your Body as Your Canvas (30 minutes) Give yourself permission to embrace your unique style. Focus on creativity as a birthright and personal style as a medium for authentic self-expression, driven by intuition and spirit.

Stage 4: A celebration of the magic of clothing and the joy to be discovered in mind-body-clothing. Anyone can participate in this exciting runway event and showcase how you have chosen 'to fashion' yourself.  

Research Workshop with Auckland Libraries Staff

A page taken from a 1970s Eve magazine.

The New Zealand Fashion Museum prides itself on delivering interesting, informative, and factually accurate stories. In this workshop, you will learn how you can make use of the Auckland Libraries archival and pictorial collections while researching and writing a story for the NZ Fashion Museum. Join librarians Anna Varghese and Brent Giblin who will share how to access, search, use, and credit some of these wonderful resources. They will then invite you to apply this knowledge in a practical way to begin a fashion story draft for the Fashion Museum.

Welcome back treasures from the wardrobe

Dianne Ludwig of Welcome Back Slow Fashion, in a Jenny Kee knit jumper.

Join a session with Dianne Ludwig of Welcome Back Slow Fashion to get some tips on how to make your clothes look their absolute best and most appealling; whether it's for selling them, to have them photographed for the Fashion Museum collection, to hand down the generations, or maybe you will want to wear them again...

Dive into your wardrobe, bring along something of your own, and let our expert help you to remake it a Love Story.

 Fashion Mini Walk 

Doris de Pont ONZM leads a walking tour around the Auckland CBD.

Did you know that many of Aotearoa's Department Stores were started by women and Smith and Caughey's was one of them? Join us for a mini guided walking tour to learn about some of the history of this icon of Queen Street as we expose some of its hidden layers and offer you insights that will increase your appreciation of our rich cultural and social heritage. 

A Fresh Start: Refresh, Repair or Restyle

An example of sashiko style hand mending.

Torn, worn through, or just not quite fitting right - bring your garment along to for a fresh start. Based on the concept of the repair cafe (everything deserves as long a life as possible) we will have a team of volunteer machine sewers, hand stitchers and assorted crafters on hand to discover ways to make that ‘broken’ garment wearable again. It might want a patch or a visible mend, it might want to be shorter or more fitted, it might just want a little bit of a creative rethink. If we can do it for you or with you - we will. 

This workshop runs all day. 

Fashion Emergency Rescue

Learn to sew on a button and mend a hem.

Knowing how to sew on a button is really useful! Whether you are putting the finishing touches to something you have made yourself or replacing the button that just popped off your shirt – learn how to sew on a button that will stay put. This session is at 1 pm.

Learn how to fix that hem with a needle and thread - There are many different hemming techniques which are used in different scenarios but the catch stitch hem is a good all-rounder,. It can be used on most fabric weights and can be stitched on a raw edge (if your fabric doesn’t fray too much), on an overlocked or zigzagged edge, or on a turned edge. Because of the way it zig zags it allows a bit of movement making it an ideal hem for knit fabrics. You can master it in a session at 2 pm.

Bring your own garment for repair or learn the techniques with materials that we provide.

We will be sharing our day with the Global Fashioning Assembly online on the 19th of October. 

The GFA is a biennial online gathering of local fashion coalitions from around the world to de-center and decolonise knowledge creation and sharing on body fashioning practices and heritages. GFA was initiated in 2021 by the Research Collective on Decoloniality & Fashion (RCDF), a not-for-profit organisation registered in the Netherlands.

Hui Auaha o Aotearoa 2024 is supported by the City Centre targeted rate. 

Global Fashioning Assembly 2024 is supported by the Creative Industries fund NL. 

web: www.globalfashioningassembly.com

insta: @globalfashioningassembly