Nom*d Turncoats

Nom*d
Air New Zealand Fashion Week
Wednesday 23 September

Nom*d screened their eerie coming-of-age short film, Turncoats, at Skycity Theatre and then art became life as models walked off the stage and through the audience in virginal white and brazen flashes of colour, taking formation on the theatre stage in a sinister tableau set to the song "I'm so sick." 

It was the week's earliest show with a 10am start incongruous with the dark moody nature of the label and the gaps in the audience perhaps testament to some guests partying too hard after the Zambesi show the previous night.

The short film "Turncoats" directed by Kirsty Cameron was styled by Karen Inderbitzen-Waller using Nom*d clothing to tell a story of good children who go through adolescent rites of passage then grew up and ran away towards worldly delights. The tale was told without words using colour and costume changes on the cast of young women in a large house in the country, going from pilgrims in aprons playing in the sunshine with each other, to dancing wordlessly in a dungeon-like basement in layers of black. They leave the house and run through the forest in sensual fabrics of velvet, leather and flowing rayon in hues of red, purple and tie-dyed garments. 



Leather strapping that caged the body was a metaphor for "the conflict between conformity and self expression" and "throwing off what shackles may bind you."

We loved the styling with the breastplates of shattered mirrors which were beautiful visually, as well as adding another layer in the story's meaning.

Designer Margi Robertson takes the stage at the end of the show.



Megan Robinson
Photos Kevin Robinson