From Crane Brothers

For their summer offerings of ready-to-wear, Crane Brothers have produced a range of suits using Escorial wool. This is the wool derived from a centuries-old flock of sheep which was once a treasure of Spain, but in recent history, now exists as flocks in Australia and New Zealand. As a fibre, it is supremely lightweight, but with a resilience which means it doesn’t crease. It also has a remarkable, satisfying sheen quite unlike any other wool.

In styling, the Crane Brothers summer suits embrace a world of three-piece ensembles, and a mathematical precision of pattern-making and cutting. With joyful spirit, the collection is based on the character of Dickie Greenleaf, the errant son from the 1955 novel The Talented Mr Ripley, so well turned into the sartorial visual marker in the 1999 film.

Old Bank Arcade

A hundred years ago, every big city had a ‘bank corner’ where major banks built landmark premises. The Wellington branch of the BNZ, had a pride position on its site shaped like a ship’s prow negotiating the intersection of Lambton and Customhouse Quays. 

The building went up in 1900 – a confidence-inspiring confection of cement ornamentation on the outside with a huge banking chamber inside rich with woodwork and polychrome tiles. Thousands of people transacted business inside this chamber each day, so it was worth putting on a show. Yet such finery hadn’t always distinguished this piece of real estate. In the 1840s it was little more than a finger of gravel jutting into the harbour: the settlers called it Clay Point.

Then the hull of a wrecked ship – the Inconstant which had been on its way to Peru – was towed into the harbour and set onto this gravel. Stabilized with beams of wood, the hull became the basis for an eccentric emporium known as Noah’s Ark, full of imported necessities like china, glassware, clothes and ironmongery.

Then came huge land reclamations in the 1860s which pushed the harbour’s edge blocks away from Lambton Quay. Noah’s Ark was levelled to make a building site for the newly-established Bank of New Zealand. The bank’s first building here was wooden, but thirty years on the bank built its landmark which we know today as the Old Bank Arcade.

Old Bank Arcade is home to boutiques and eateries, all accessible from promenades and flights of stairs fitting into the original volumes of the banking chamber. It is a walk through quality, surprise and engagement.

Trelise Cooper Interview

Deco from Phoenix

Phoenix Renata, founder of Phoenix Cosmetics, has produced a brilliantly-crafted collection of makeup under the name Dollface Baby. Immediately evident is a cinematic spirit of Art Deco – encounters with movie star posters, the first use of neon lighting, and porcelain figures on heavy alabaster bases.

In this photo, Renata’s notions of the ‘face-as-canvas’ and ‘makeup is fun’ are carried through with a verve any Deco practitioner would have appreciated. Colour graduations are smoothly magical. The eye work is crisp and balanced – the little butterflies which have alighted are cut paper. And the lipstick, called Berry, is a long-finish, substantial work of architectural colour.

The Deco era has always fascinated Renata. Covering the entire mood scale from delicious fun through to the sombre of black and white movies, Deco also relies on exacting lines and technical precision to produce masterful works. This range from Phoenix has all the material available for such mastery.

Terence H

Ruby’s Boardwalk

The shirt is the ‘Boardwalk Shirt’, done in a silk-cotton mix. The pants are the ‘Holiday Runners’, done in a heavy cotton drill.

The garments are from the summer collection of Ruby boutique, titled ‘Boardwalk’. Here we are invited into a youthful, warm take on beachwear, big skies and leisure. It is a stylish boardwalk that Ruby has designed for, and frequently delights in a confident use of colours drawn from the interiors of mouth-watering fruits.


Terence H

Into the Light

The garment is the ‘Phedra dress’, done in a crepe-textured silk. An application of ruffles, and the use of multiple panels for the skirt allows the colouring to appear both filmy, as well as in solid blocks depending on where the light falls.

Phedra is from Kate Sylvester’s summer collection called ‘Into the Light’. It applauds the emerging into summer light after months of sombre winter. Summer light brings brilliance, radiance, and a feel of expansiveness. For the designer’s campaign, the notion of light is not just that provided by the sun, but also the light of theatre spotlights and banks of floodlights. The collection is a celebration, and lyrical at that.

Terence H

World Man

There is an assuredness about World’s summer collection of men’s garments. Fun, unexpected materials and jazzy compilations make this showing a wardrobe of possibilities.

Done in a rich, harbourside-blue brocade, this is World’s ‘Perfect Beat’ blazer. Excellent pattern-making and tailoring has turned what was once deemed the fabric of an occasional adventurous cushion into a parading piece of modern couture.

 

Like a work of abstract art from a Manhattan studio, this jacket proclaims its paint-drip patterning with no explanation. It’s pure take it or leave it.

Threading through this collection are references to music – particularly the world of 1980s Bronx-based hip hop performers. Many of the garments’ names celebrate such recording artists as Tone Loc and Afrika Bambaataa. These references are not strident, but exist in their own underlying layer. Such themes and vibrations also feature in World’s summer collection for women.