NEWSROOM's Readingroom section is a great place to catch up with the latest books and it was a delight to see them both review 'Central Otago Couture' and also to run a competition for a free copy.
Read the extract below:
Last week’s giveaway was a copy of the year’s most beautiful illustrated coffeetable book, Central Otago Couture byJane Malthus & Claire Regnault & Derek Henderson (Te Papa Press, $70). Photographed by Derek Henderson. Central Otago Couture exhibits the amazing collection of Otago farmer Eden Hore, who in 1975 opened a museum (an old tractor shed) on his farm in the tussocked hills of the Mānaiatoto to display more than 220 high-end fashion garments.
Readers were asked to send in a photo of themselves or someone in their life wearing something absolutely fabulous. It was a very popular contest. I saw things I cannot unsee. But they included visions of loveliness, such as Madeleine wearing one of her mother’s many 1970s Kaftans, made from furnishing fabric, completed with a rabbit fur bonnet; Tracey’s daughter Devon modelling in Dunedin’s Fashion Week in an outfit with floor-length sleeves; and Gloria, uncannily reincarnated as Marilyn Monroe to sing happy birthday to her husband on his 80th birthday.
But the winner is Jessie, who wrote, “I bought this dress at a jumble sale in the North of England around 1970. It is bias-cut crepe. I used to wear it to concerts at the Manchester Free Trade Hall – King Crimson, Led Zeppelin… My life took a lot of turns, and after cruising on a yacht for a couple of decades, I washed up in the Bay of Islands, and have lived here longer than anywhere else. Sixteen years ago I returned to the UK for my mother’s funeral. When my sister & I were cleaning out Mum’s attic we discovered the dress – the only item of my clothing not to have been chucked out. After 50+ years it still fits, and I wore it recently to a friend’s 80th birthday party.”
Huzzah to Jessie; she wins a free copy of Central Otago Couture byJane Malthus & Claire Regnault & Derek Henderson. And here she is, a vision of bias-cut crepe loveliness.
