Deborah Smith worked at Real Time on Ponsonby Rd when she first met Marilyn Sainty in the 1980s. Their creative collaboration began when Marilyn approached Deborah to photograph her garments in the early '90s, which started a friendship and a long-time working relationship that was capped off by an exhibition, Au Revoir Marilyn Sainty, which Deborah curated to mark the retiring of Marilyn's label in 2005. 

This coat, made of brown glazed linen, was from the first of many collections that sported Deborah's photographs, from 1998. This range followed earlier works of Marilyn's with printed squares appliqued to garments inspired by a trip to a Mark Rothko exhibition in Paris. This format lent itself seamlessly to their collaborations which featured black and white photos printed onto 100% cotton, and applied to a range of garments, including outerwear, shirts, and T-shirts over many years that followed.

Their creative collaboration was not limited to this application and Deborah's imagery for the Marilyn Sainty label extended into lookbooks, marketing material for Marilyn's boutique Scotties, and an intensely personal exhibition, Dust Cloaks, at the Hawke's Bay Museum in 2000.

Deborah's photographic practice was unusual at the time, and while originally hesitant to call herself a fashion photographer, shooting women who were not always professional models in atypical locations and creating ethereal yet down-to-earth images paved the way for successive New Zealand fashion photographers working into the 21st century. 

The NZFM photographed this garment at our Popup photography session in October 2024 which was part of our Hui Auaha o Aotearoa Open Day, see the full conversation between Marilyn Sainty, Deborah Smith, and Cerys Davidson which took place at this event below.