Outrageous Fortune brought Westie bogan chic into our living rooms - now it's hitting the Auckland Museum in a new exhibition.
How does a West Aucklander dress? She wears a denim mini-skirt from Glassons with a singlet from Pagani, both pieces that she picked up late night shopping at West City. He wears black jeans and a Tool T-shirt, or perhaps big puffy skate shoes with baggy jeans. She wears a
velvet dress from the Titirangi markets, with an amethyst necklace she bought at Crystal Mountain. She wears a Karen Walker dress with Kathryn Wilson shoes. Hang on, that's me, although I am a born and bred Westie. It's true: we do dress like they did on Outrageous Fortune.
The Auckland Museum's much-hyped exhibition dedicated to the television series opened yesterday, with a wardrobe room that showcases some of the most memorable pieces worn on the show.
The exhibition aims to "encourage visitors to ask questions about how a fantasy version of Auckland's identity can in turn influence and contribute to our understanding of ourselves and wider New Zealand culture", while the costume area acts as a celebration of a style that's uniquely our own.
Katrina Hodge was the series' costume designer, bringing Westie bogan chic into New Zealand living rooms since the programme began in 2005 (she also produced the official merchandise, including the Tool Guys tees which are - I'm going to call it - an iconic piece of New Zealand style).
The audience may not have known it, but many of the characters were wearing expensive, designer clothes, not something that could be picked up down in Henderson - Loretta wore a Kate Sylvester dress to the opening of her brothel, got married in a Cybele dress and carried a few Deadly Ponies bags; Grandpa got married in a bespoke powder blue suit by Crane Brothers; Pascalle wore a tight and short Stolen Girlfriends Club dress on her date with Aaron Spiller; some of Cheryl's jewellery was by local jewellery designer Charlotte Penman, and Van wore a lot of Huffer. And while sometimes I'd watch and wonder whether the Westie girls I know and love would really wear a Karen Walker dress with a Karen Walker crab necklace, as Pascalle did in the finale, then I would look down and see that outfit was pretty much exactly what I was wearing. Westies love Karen Walker too.
As Hodge explains, she wanted to focus on more than just the Westie, black on black stereotype.
"I wanted the costumes to have a true West Auckland feeling. The 'Westie' culture meant a lot of things to me: it didn't just conjure up images of black jumpers, black jeans, black wraps and a packet of rollies in your back pocket, or tie-dye, lace and leather ... although that does help in the West extended family! I was a Westie, and so was Karen Walker, Bob Harvey and Ewen Gilmour at the time, so I made sure there was a variety of looks in the show. But the true essence lay in the proud way that these people wore their clothes."
And funnily enough, soon after the series began, bogan fever seemed to take over the local fashion industry - Lonely Hearts did a collection inspired by Moto X and bogans who love their cars, plaid shirts became ubiquitous, as did leopard print and black lace, which continues to feature in almost every single collection.
Indeed, local designers continue the bogan influence next season, from Lonely Hearts' and Cybele's velvet dresses to Deborah Sweeney's plaid shirts to Stolen Girlfriends Club's "Flared doll" dress, which would perfectly suit Outrageous Fortune's Rochelle.
"Westies are a bunch of locals who hang together, live together and are proud of how they look," explains Hodge, who based some of the characters' wardrobes on people she grew up with out West.
"If you can watch a character on screen and say, 'Hey, I know someone who dresses like that', it makes you feel closer to them, you relate to them."
And therein lies the success of the costumes: even non-Westies will know an acerbic young woman with a penchant for black, a friendly stoner who loves denim vests, a confident 20-something whose hemlines can verge on the inappropriate, or someone who looks incredible in leopard print.
