nzfashionlabelarchive/Instagram
A lifelong interest in clothing that is outside the mainstream has led Cathy Dunn to document an often unseen aspect of Kiwi clothing design.
As a former professional archivist, Cathy Dunn knows the value of documenting and preserving aspects of cultural history that might otherwise fade from memory. This is especially true in the realm of fashion.
Dunn spent half a decade working at the MTG (Hawkes Bay regional museum) and it was that experience that really sparked her interest in the history of our country’s fashion history.
Now, through her Instagram account @nzfashionlabelarchive, she’s curating an instantly useful archive of an often unseen or underappreciated aspect of Kiwi clothing design: New Zealand fashion labels and labels.
Dunn finds her medium of choice as she searches for gems to sell through her Instagram shop @jubileevintageshop and co-op store The Department of Curiosities in Napier, where she sells a collection of vintage and pre-loved modern pieces.
READ MORE:
* Author Noelle McCarthy’s clothes are full of good stories and local gems
* Cost of living: Op shopping’s answer to style and affordability
* Meet the man guarding 1980s New Zealand one artifact at a time
* The best second hand clothing stores in New Zealand
The site is a delightful haunt for fashionistas and typography lovers alike, filled with rich and original examples of retro serif typefaces that inform a range of nostalgic designs today.
It and other local accounts like @vintage.nz.fashionlabels join other internationally focused social accounts that share the typographic joy of nostalgic clothing labels, like @labeltime.
Eager to know more, I asked Dunn to share what she’s learned during her archiving process.
Where did your fascination with vintage labels originate?
I have always been drawn to clothing that is out of the mainstream. My mother used to dress me and my sisters in matching clothes, but soon after I started school, a cousin gave me a striped bachelorette dress that she had outgrown, and I vividly remember the unbridled joy I felt in wearing something different.
Growing up in the punk era, my schoolmates and I would scour thrift stores for vintage frocks and tiny skirts to wear with our custom T-shirts and ripped fishnet tights.
I wanted to be able to make my own clothes and my mum didn’t sew, so I applied to Wellington Polytechnic and completed the two-year fashion course (alongside Kate Sylvester and Robyn Mathieson). We studied fashion history and I fell for the shapes and fabrics – and labels – of the 50s and 60s.
I was an early adopter of TradeMe, buying and selling and amassing a small collection of vintage pieces. I would always ask for a picture or description of the tag so I can verify authenticity.
What is it that attracts you to these vintage labels? How do they differ from modern versions?
They come from a time when things were made here in New Zealand and made well, made to last. Also, fonts!
Did you notice if there were any flourishes of design or style that were unique to local labels?
Not the way the wool blanket labels did. I also have a collection of them, and they feature tiki and moko, along with place names like Onehunga and Mosgiel where the mills were.
Until the late 1960s, clothing labels referred to elements of French haute couture design or British tailoring to reflect the aspirations of their wealthy customers.
The labels became more modern after Mary Quant ignited the youth earthquake, but still generally followed what was popular overseas.
Can you tell me about some of your favorite label discoveries?
-
An early Pepper.
-
A Fidgits t-shirt – relatively rare now.
-
I love one from R&K Originals that says “For the girl who knows clothes.”
-
A friend has a Colin Cole outfit with his hand-stitched label that I love.
-
I won a TradeMe auction for a coat hanger labeled Babs Radon.
From your tracking, can you determine when the weirdness of clothing labels dropped? Why do you think this was?
After clothing import licenses were removed and tariffs were lowered, New Zealand-based clothing factories could not compete with all the cheap clothing imported, mainly from China, so by the early 2000s most had closed. This is when labels became more generic to keep costs down.
I have to say that the good thing about modern labeling is that you are given information on the content of the fabric and care instructions.
To your professional eye, which local designers of the time had consistently good labels?
Thornton Hall, Hullabaloo, Floookies, Arrow and Lady Arrow, Miss Deb.
What contemporary brands do you think have interesting or cool labels?
I love the Jo sisters.
Are there any aspects of modern fashion that you think people will archive in years to come?
Te Papa has already added Nope clothing to their social history collection. I think there will be more emphasis on archiving the social aspect of clothing than on design.
The way different subcultures adopt elements of fashion is really interesting. Also, designers and manufacturers who reuse fabric (such as Good Daisy and Dreamcult Clothing) are likely to be archived, as examples of current response to environmental issues.
