This combination of a hoop skirt, vest and leggings featured on Zambesi’s invitation for their show at London Fashion Week in 1999. For over 30 years words like 'dark', 'atmospheric' and 'layered' have been used 
to describe the Zambesi style. It is an aesthetic that has gently evolved, informed by designer Elisabeth Findlay’s exploration of her passion for clothing, which was cultivated from an early age by her Greek mother. Elisabeth intuitively selects materials regardless of the dictates of fashion. Reinvention is a constant theme – manipulating the past to create the present. Zambesi holds an archive of back-patterns, which Elisabeth consults during the design process. Occasionally, a favourite garment may be repeated. This hooped skirt debuted in Zambesi’s 1986 collection and was reissued in 1999 and in 2004. Read more about wearing the colour black in the New Zealand Fashion Museum publication Black: The history of black in fashion, society and culture in New Zealand.