Zambesi retrospective by no means a blackout

Elisabeth Findlay is proud of her achievements at Zambesi over 25 years. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

For a designer with a fondness for dark attire and a reputation for being darkly intellectual, Elisabeth Findlay was expecting some banter about the palette of her debut exhibition.

"There was an ongoing joke about the show being all black," says Zambesi's founder and designer.

It's by no means a blackout at Zambesi's retrospective exhibition, opening tomorrow at the Auckland Museum, even if it is called Edge of Darkness. This installation has the masterly strokes of a designer inexplicably linked with fabric and its interplay of print and texture.

After 25 years, Zambesi has reached that lofty stage where iconic is a snug fit. Findlay admits it is humbling for her designs to be elevated from clothes rack to work of art.

At Zambesi's workroom, Findlay is rifling through the extensive archive of clothing in search of one of her treasures.

She darts between the racks, while explaining the necessity of maintaining a shifting gaze.

"We want to keep that unexpected feeling and we do that by manipulating what we have done in the past, present and what we're about to do. Reinvention is a consistent theme."

To prove her point, Findlay whips out a vinyl mini skirt, a relic from the 80s that could so easily be worn today. She is often in awe of customers' nifty reinventions of past collections.

Truly creative types such as Findlay seem to exist on a dripfeed of novel ideas. Delve into the treasure trove of past collections and you are reminded just how far these imaginations run: an eccentric fantail skirt, a gem-encrusted chiffon shift, and elaborate jackets, each with vintage buttons.

The job of whittling down this extensive wardrobe fell to curator Peter Shand, the creative hand behind World's fashion exhibition at the Auckland Museum.

"I let him go through all the archives and I just stayed away," says Findlay. "I thought it would be interesting to see how it would evolve from an objective viewpoint.

"As an outsider infiltrating the Zambesi clan, he had to get in touch with the label's emotional resonance. Thankfully it was a creative match.

"He sees beneath the top layer. He totally gets what we do."

The exhibition has three distinctive themes - creative objects, creative practice and creative women - which gave a select few creative types a free hand to choose their favourite pieces.

The clothes will be framed by blow-up photos from past campaigns and exquisite furniture from the museum's collection.

Although it is a retrospective show, Shand hasn't displayed the clothes in chronological order.

"We didn't want to cluck it through season by season. We wanted to do something that pitched at the evocativeness of the work.

"So we tried to pull out that sense of connection of remembrance and associations that we all get with clothes."

But selecting the garments extended beyond a sentimental journey through treasured pieces.

"It could have potentially stopped at the I-remember-when stage, but to make a show with dimension and depth, the garments have to be carriers of the idea of emotion, rather than specific ideas of emotion," says Shand.

Findlay is chuffed at the prospect of the public viewing 25 years of her creative output.

"I'm proud of a label that is home-grown. For our customers it's an affirmation of what they believed in, and without them we wouldn't be here."

The Grace Knitted Tube

Although it will be out of reach, curator Peter Shand hopes visitors will feel an insurmountable desire to put their hands on the fabric.

The fans will be clamouring after Grace, a knitted silk tube that drapes dxifferently on every body type. It's finished off with honey-coloured Mae, a rabbit fur cape with a pretty-as-pink floral lining. The kind of sassy number that keeps Hollywood stars running up the red carpet. Not for the fainthearted, but then people who embrace the label have attitude.

"They're confident, creative people," says Findlay, "who are interested in developing a style of their own with pieces we offer."

The Frock

The Zambesi fashion house is a family affair. Husband Neville Findlay runs the business, daughter Marissa is the photographer, sister Margarita Robertson is the design force behind Nom-D, and creative director Tulia Wilson and other key staff are just like family.

Findlay's 80-year-old mother learned to sew in the concentration camps, and after moving to Dunedin in the 1950s, she became a highly skilled seamstress with a passion for clothes. A favourite mother-daughter pastime was ferreting out remnants and transforming them into stylish frocks. It is with great pride that Findlay included one of her mother's frocks in the exhibition and for The Frock she revitalised the print from another of her old dresses.

"While the journey into the archives has been nerve-racking at times, it's been exciting going back through things that you feel will tell a story," says Findlay.

The Slim Legged Look

If Zambesi were The Cure, they'd be releasing their definitive collector's album.

It's not the best-of album, insists Wilson. Shand agrees, it's more like the hits and the B sides with the odd unreleased track. The Ramones pants in grey denim were a big hit in the summer of 2004. For the exhibition, this slim-legged pant, not unlike those worn by singer Robert Smith, is teamed with an Aphrodite dress in an exotic jungle print adorned with beads and sequins. The jacket, in heavily embroidered taffeta, has a stiffness that suits its lofty ranking of First Lady in the collection.

This is a story of contrast but like any good album each garment is carefully considered before its inclusion in the final silhouette.

"It's not just a matter of throwing it together and anything goes. It's more about making the best of each piece; the way you combine them. It's considered styling," says Findlay.

The Duke and the Battle Jacket

Zambesi has always deviated from set trends, and the design process remains totally fluid. There's an ambiguity about the label, which Findlay encourages.

"I like the idea of a question mark over the garment. The wearer is an individual rather than a clone because they're wearing a label that isn't instantly recognisable. They're drawn to our label for other reasons."

The designer took traditional suiting and reshaped it for the Duke's pants and a military-style Battle Jacket. But the real showstopper is Tinkerbell, a bright tutu that completes the signature look of skirts over pants.

Findlay admits it's fun to keep people guessing. "I like the idea of frivolous against the hard edge of suiting. It's a witty piece and a little unexpected."

Four pieces together

One of the exhibition themes, says Shand, is the accretion of garments, which reflects Zambesi's continual layering-up of ideas.

A persistent feature of the work is a constant sense of rediscovery.

This ensemble combines four layers of textures and colours, and it stands as a mischievous invitation for close examination of each piece. Another example of Zambesi flair is the reversible Dorothy jacket.

"We went through a period where we were trying to get the maximum from each piece, so we made them reversible. It was a period of turning things around and upside down."

* Please visit the picture gallery link above for photos of the clothing mentioned in this story. Read more about what's happening in the world of food, wine, fashion and beauty in viva, part of your Herald print edition every Wednesday.