The 1940s showgirls and their costumier

By EMMA CHAMBERLAIN

Like any good New Zealander looking to make a head-dress for a semi-clad woman, Regina Raye, costumier to the Civic Dancers of the 1940s, started with a frame made from No 8 wire.

Next, she scoured the munitions factory where she worked for left-over black plastic and parachute fabric, and dredged old boxes of Christmas decorations and window dressings for tinsel and ribbon.

With glitter and glue, these fragments became the alluring headwear of a troupe of showgirls who wore little more than breast plates and "abbreviated briefs." The best known was Freda Stark.

"Freda didn't need very much in the way of a costume. She was quite a feature as she was," 89-year-old Raye says simply, referring to her friend's habit of dancing wearing only gold paint and a G-string.

As we sit in the Civic Theatre, where remakes of eight of Raye's head-dresses were put on display last week, it is hard to imagine this immaculately dressed woman, just 152cm tall, being involved in a production that scandalised Auckland.

But it could be said that the costumes were more about fantasy and an exotic escape from the Second World War than sinful debauchery.

Raye is also careful to point out that her showgirls would wear so little only on the main stage, where it was not possible for the audience to see too much.

Archivist for the Friends of the Civic Anna Soutar says the head-dresses date from an era when glamour and magic were important.

"These showgirls were working at ammunition factories during the day and at night they became performers in front of an audience that was often full of soldiers in bandages," she says.

"Regina told me she thinks she invented the leather look, with all that black plastic she used."

The head-dresses were worn only in the showgirls' parade - the finale of a 30-minute dance show held either on the main Civic stage or down in the Wintergarden. It consisted of a series of poses, including the formation of a human pyramid.

The Civic display is a collaboration between Raye and craftsman Marshall Watt, who was also a friend of Stark's.

Guided by Raye's designs and her choice in materials, Watt has remade six head-dresses similar to those the showgirls wore. He has also remade two silver crowns that were worn only by Stark.

The crowns are shaped like swimming caps, covering the whole head. One has metre-long feathers streaming from the top and the other has a stream of silver balls down each side.

Watt, who was not part of the heady days at the Civic, says Raye was known as the life and soul of the review between 1942 and 1945.

As well as scrimping for costumes for show programmes that changed weekly, Raye was responsible for all the choreography, and often appeared in the floorshows herself.

A trained ballet dancer, she was once selected by Anna Pavlova to dance with the Russian Ballet, but her mother forbade her to go.

"I don't think she wanted to part with me," says Raye.

With the end of the war came the end of the dances and Raye returned to her former, less glamorous life as a ballet teacher.

"In 1945 the bottom fell out of our world," Raye says, looking a little distressed. "Our audience was overseas servicemen, you see. We lost our permanent fans."