You think you know Zambesi? You don’t know Zambesi.
In what was a thrilling tour de force, Zambesi showed that reinvention and innovation is the hallmark of exceptional design. From the outset, this presentation affirmed the label’s reputation as one of the leading fashion houses in New Zealand, the strength of collaboration across the lines between Elisabeth Findlay (women’s) and Dayne Johnston (men’s), the professional polish of its shows and the emotional centre of the garments. All the while (and despite many surprises and inventive steps) this show reflected the essential characteristics of Zambesi’s ethos. For the second time today one was compelled to stand and applaud. Truly, I was moved.
This was unquestionably not only a superlative show in and of itself but a new watershed for the label. Without backtracking one iota on who they are and what they represent for New Zealand fashion history, Zambesi have rewritten their book.
A consummate display. Fifty silhouettes; several distinct stories; an astonishing coherence.
Venerability can bring its challenges. With experience and wisdom, it can seem as though a label might fall out of touch or rely on approaches that have served it in the past. Though anticipation was high for this presentation (the venue was full, the first in the week) one suspects that the predominant tenor of that expectation was for classic Zambesi. And so it was, only classicism with a new position to be explored; hallmark Zambesi drivers but reinscribed for a new collection, a new articulation. Still here the attention to finishing details, the instinctive way with fabric, the witty interplay of features, the drama of silhouettes and the extraordinary sympathy for clothes, their design, manufacture, feel, capacity to evoke emotions of many different temperatures.
As each new model emerged form the gate, it became increasingly apparent that this was a very special showing indeed. The narratives of the collection built quite slowly but with assured strength at first and then dramatic changes in mood enhanced the sense of a collection of importance. Brilliantly handled details and features carried additional narratives across the collection – truly it was symphonic in its depth, in the play of motif, in the advance and retreat of ideas and design features that draw together to make a collection sweeping in its movements yet delicate and nuanced in the specifics of its phrasing.
So it started simply. The declaration of a simple motif, a little tine. The woman emerged in a yellow fluro pant with broad black side-seam, a simple black sweater on the back of which was a vertical strip of fluro maybe two inches wide. To start with colour immediately (and such a tough colour too easily prone to over-deployment and subsequent ridicule) suggests something is afoot.
She is followed by the man. Similar overall concept of pant and sweater but with the smallest, most nuanced of shifts in pitch – the strip is now horizontal and on the front of the garment.
And so it builds, this first theme, with unstructured garments of softer lines (including attention-grabbing pieces such as a fluro blouse with fulsome bow) combined with leather separates or combination fabric pieces. Domes surrounding the neck of a man’s jersey suggest possible further pieces or detachable elements not yet shown – intrigue and anticipation follows and initial rush of the unexpected, Disarmed, the show’s audience now expected to move beyond attention as loudness but to attend to the garments, be attentive, if you will. This is a rare thing in New Zealand fashion, it is a sense of dynamics that is most akin to that in music – not the sense of singular dynamism of a garment (how it moves, say) but the rise and fall of a suite of pieces, a succession of silhouettes (dynamism that is alive across and between outfits).
Then a shift, a change of air. The arrival of chocolate as a colour. The introduction of a black drill boiler-suit with leather waisting. This succeeded by delicate tones, a chambray-blue, white and then bright blue woman’s jacket – still with intimate connecitons to the previous story such as fluro zips.
Then the new motif of chunky knit neckpieces, piled one atop the other; continuation of the blue and then ramping that up with the introduction of bright blue in a fleece-like fabric trouser. Garment choices in this movement concluding with a woman’s jump suit.
A further shift in tone with the first clear declaration of suiting – here a subtle brown plaid mans suit with a exaggeratedly high cut jacket. Again, thrilling, unexpected, the arrival of more sonorous tones, lower strings to pursue the musical analogy. And velvet now for women; another man’s suit, again a short double vented jacket (though lower than the first) white shirt, fluro top – office wear reconfigured with the intense, sharp accent. A man’s trench; a soft, lambskin dress, the arrival of a puffed collar.
Turning back the dial, layered black, fine knitwear, a continuation of a theme of horizontally cut combinations of fabrics, already seen in several garments by now. A long dress in blue, the print with soft, large almost like jaguar-blotches; reappearing in men’s shirts (and in green). An extension into plaid, more deployment of the brown, checks in the knitwear, new plaids in skirts.
Building, now the layers of pieces, ideas, colours, becoming increasingly contrapuntal, perhaps fugue-like. A rise in layering, the introduction of sheeny plasticated material, softer cottons, more dramatic asymmetry, the historic reminisce of an inverted jacket, a royal blue in velvet, the knit neck piece and fluro detailing peeking through from pocket linings, almost winking.
And a final shift, a new movement. Crisp, clean white pant and top. His hooded parker, white, soft fur inner, fluro banding on the inside of the juncture of hood to jacket. The puffed collar returns, white now, an echo, a remembrance; a white bomber; the return of the man’s sweater form the second silhouette, reminding of that first high sweet motif; a new hooded piece for him; for her a short-sleeved trench, that continuing play with length and shape, with the new twists on garments you think you’ve seen before, pieces you think you know and understand.
To a finale of models in pairs – akin to pairs of chords. Like the main show, slower at first, with long pauses, then gathering pace to the conclusion of the show. And that show a masterclass in pacing and structure.
A remarkably lyrical presentation. Sensitive, alert, subtle and moving. Bravo.
Bravo.
