Fashion designer Karen Walker has always delighted in presenting the unexpected.
In 2003, when the brand showcased a rotating presentation instead of a runway show at New Zealand Fashion Week, there was a furore.
Overseas buyers walked out, one quoted as saying on exit, “It’s a bloody joke.”
Karen stood behind her vision, saying “I didn’t want to do a big fashion show and I can do what I want.”
Like the revolving platform used in that show, things have come around. Twenty-two years later, format transgression is now status quo. The promise of amplified elasticity set by the NZFW board, encouraging labels to do Fashion Week however they pleased, is what lured Karen Walker back after a 15-year hiatus.
“This vision is not 35 looks trotting up a runway,” she said when announcing her return.
On the night only two trotted. They galloped too.
Finnish hobby horse athlete Ada Filppa opened a frenetic middle portion of the show to the audience’s audible delight, joined by model Olive Mackenzie, who also participated in the sport as a child.
They were overtaken halfway by a scramble of athletic talent - including Olympic gold medallist and former captain of the Black Ferns Sevens Sarah Hirini - who tackled the runway with gusto.
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Advertise with NZME.The show - titled Life With Obstacles - was a high-octane collaboration with Adidas, seeing looks cavorting down a runway obstructed by all manner of physical hitches: horse agility barriers, tire runs and flower boxes overflowing with blooms, breaking the models’ path. It made for a lively and purposefully agile display.
Karen’s been keen to tap into the energy of hobby horsing for about two years, and this dynamic environment seemed like the moment.
Combining athleticism, choreography, and precision, hobby horsing is a real and competitive sport that sees participants perform show jumping and dressage-style routines, just without a live horse.
“It’s that sort of high playfulness and high skill... Hobby horsing is a sport and, like all sports, it started from a place of joy.”
She sees the physical impediments placed in the model’s way as a positive challenge as well.
“The models have to get around it all, which kind of speaks to real life, really. Dealing with what’s getting in your way every day,” Karen explains.
“There’s this commentary on what it is to walk around the world being a human. A commentary on agility and athleticism, making that kind of everyday also making it elevated.”
They weren’t just walking through, though. Decked in a boisterous mix of Adidas streetwear and Karen’s signature prints and billowing blouses, models cantered, leapt, and skipped down the runway.
The talent were instructed by Karen to have fun.
“This isn’t po faced. This is this is pure joy and love.
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Advertise with NZME.“This is interaction, this is playfulness, there’s a lightness, there’s breeze street and fashion and mixing it together. There’s commuting on life. You can interpret it in loads of different ways.
The message Karen hopes people take away from the show?
“Have fun in the face of the obstacle, in spite of the obstacles, because of the obstacles.”
Karen wanted chaos and she delivered.
“(Chaos) was kind of the working title for the show around the office because we wanted that feeling, that sense of chaos, that...sense of excitement.”
The show messaging had multitudes and the styling, finessed by Karen Inderbitzen-Waller, was layered as well. Literally and figuratively. Karen’s brief to the creative team was to show ready to wear and sportswear coming together, in a joyous fusion.
“Every look is a combination of the high-low. It’s street luxe. We’ve made quite a few special neck frills and playful, puffy skirts. There’s a lot of long socks and great Adidas.”
There were squat knit shorts, and heavy fuzzy jackets. Knits and long floaty dresses. Insulating bonnets and sun-shielding glasses. All were a statement. Prioritising creativity, seasonality and retail availability when curating the show.
“We’ve got some items that are dropping in 12 months’ time, some that are in store right now, some that are actually from the archive, some that are made for the show and will never be might never be sale.
“Sales isn’t what this is about. This is about having a joyful moment, celebrating high-end and street coming together, how we dress every day really.”
In a full circle moment, Anna Reeve, who appeared in the 2003 show, reunited with the brand on the catwalk tonight. The model (who lives with alopecia) says working with the brand helped her overcome her own obstacles.
“Karen Walker started booking me when I first began modelling and really championed my unique bald look, I will always love her for that. It changed my life and helped me reframe my thoughts around my hair loss. Her shows were always so much fun, part of the reason why runway was my favourite aspect of modelling.”
The rip-roaring energy that filled venue Shed 10 by show’s end was the total antithesis of the hushed anticipation it began with. The full audience sat primed as the entire length of Belle and Sebastian’s The Stars of Track & Field played out before a model appeared, opening the show by jogging on a treadmill.
Excitement grew with the song’s build. We’d waited 15 years for Karen Walker to return to NZFW, what’s 4 minutes 48 seconds more.
More from New Zealand Fashion Week
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All The Best Street Style From New Zealand Fashion Week: Kahuria 2025. Our daily dispatch of the most stylist NZFW ensembles spotted outside the shows.
What The Viva Team Is Wearing To New Zealand Fashion Week: Kahuria 2025. Treasured vintage, considered new purchases and borrowed garments we’d rather not return.
Taika Waititi Walks The Runway At New Zealand Fashion Week’s Opening Show. New Zealand Fashion Week: Kahuria kicks off at Shed 10, with sparkling NZ stars dressed in treasures from the archives.
