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Zambesi look back with grace

Zambesi 30 year Retrospective Show
Air New Zealand Fashion Week 2009
Saturday 26 September

I would have thought this (for me anyway) would be the easiest of articles to write. I have loved and admired Zambesi for as long as I can remember being interested in fashion (New Zealand or otherwise). I always wished as a young woman that I was the girl/woman who was able to wear Zambesi – they always seemed to me to be self assured and confident. And clearly comfortable with that classic twistedness that has become Zambesi.

This was most apparent on Saturday night when Zambesi put 30 years of garments, an amazing feat for any designer, let alone an New Zealand designer, on the runway. For me it was a walk down memory lane, seeing pieces I owned, or pieces I now own, but in different fabrics. In the end it was only the fabric that gave any information at all as to how old the garment was. The cuts, designs are as relevant today, as they were 30 years ago.

To blur it all even more, all the pieces were mixed together, shoes and boots, belts, tops, skirts all mixed together. You might have thought that they could have sent garments down the runway ‘together’ with pieces of the same timeframe – but no, again they just did it their way, mixing them all together making it all so seamless that you could have been looking at a current show.

The Zambesi archives are famous – for being so comprehensive – and Saturday night just proved how comprehensive they were. Someone remarked how hard they must have worked to find the footwear to work with it – it took me to point out every piece was from a Zambesi collection – how is that for comprehensive!

I would have loved to have seen some of the accessories from over the years – but seriously, you can’t have everything! The back drop had a projection of previous shows. Even the music was cobbled together from various shows over the years, I recognised ‘PJ Harvey’ and’ This Mortal Coil’ – and in doing so possibly showing my age!

The one thing that struck me about the show even before it started was the sense of reverence. All the other shows during the proceeding week, people are unsure what they were going to see, and by the end of the week it is hard to not be a more than a little jaded. I guess we all just realised we were going to see something amazing. And we really did.

From the remarkable opening by the supremely talented Neil Ieremia of Black Grace (reflecting the patronage of Neville Zambesi to the dance troupe) dressed in Zambesi, who danced a few pieces from their newest show ‘You better run Boy!’, it was joyous; an unexpected start which just struck the right note to start things off.

And again, right from the beginning of the show, you would expect that in a retrospective you would see dated pieces, but not a single piece stood out as such. It felt immediately cohesive. The purple bomber jacket, crinoline skirt, wild at heart imagery, gold sequinned tank, shiny black jodhpur pants, and perfect bustier – all could be worn today. And I would imagine still are.

The beautiful yellow skirt covered in sequins I still own and wear. And I still get as many comments all these years later then I did when I first bought it.

The entire audience was pretty much dressed in Zambesi. Petra Bagust was in vintage Zambesi, as were many others Holly Smith (looking fabulous), Noelle McCarthy, Geeling Ng, Gilda Kirkpatrick, Samantha Hayes, Bernice Mene and many, many others. I think we all felt very lucky to be there.

And I hope that I get to take my own daughter (who is already lurking around in my wardrobe and she is only 12) to the next retrospective. Long live Zambesi!