The Fashion Museum’s exhibition At the Beach can be seen at The Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt from 26 Nov 2016 – 19 Feb 2017.
Floor talk – Saturday 26 November 2pm
Doris de Pont, founder and curator of the NZ Fashion Museum, will present a floor talk around the exhibition on Saturday 26 November at 2pm, following the Vintage Market.
At the Beach playfully explores over 100 years of the history of New Zealand beach culture told through what we wore.
With woollen bathers and bikinis, swimsuits and sundresses, playsuits and parasols, Hawaiian shirts and boardies, towelling cover-ups and more, the exhibition features fashions from the early 1900s to the current day.
What we did and what we wore not only reveal our love of the coast, but our changing society and leisure pursuits. From the heavy bathing costumes of the Edwardian era to the skimpy bikinis of the 1970s and beyond, see how and why swimwear shrank, the influence of fashion and fabrics on beachwear, and the influence of the beach on our New Zealand identity.
Featuring only New Zealand made or designed garments the exhibition also charts an informal history of our fashion industry and its riding of the local and global fashion wave.
Toured by the New Zealand Fashion Museum