Central Otago, pretentiously

Newsroom

23-06-2025

And so to the best and most striking illustrated coffee table book of the year so far by a long stretch. Central Otago Couture – hardback, 330 pages, high production values as you would expect from Te Papa Press – is an epic fashion assignment, with photographer Derek Henderson sent into the great wide open of Central Otago to shoot models wearing 1970s and 80s frocks made by New Zealand designers and collected by Eden Hore, a high country sheep and beef farmer who amassed 270 garments and kept them in a converted tractor shed. The book is at once totally pretentious and very beautiful, a dazzlingly original idea cleverly executed and a cliché of how city folk see Central – no one in it, no history, no ecological tension, just nice scenery. Either which way, it looks amazing.
Kevin Berkahn day dress, 1973. John Kaldor synthetic sheer with acetate lining, EH20. Photographed at Bannockburn, 2019. Model: Hannah Clarke
Eden Hore's story is told simply and effectively in the text, by Jane Malthus and Claire Regnault. He was born in Naseby in 1919. He went to war in Egypt. 'On leave in Cairo, Eden visited the Cairo Museum of Hygiene, which he said put him off sex completely.' Back home, he bought an 8100-hectare farm, ran 9000 sheep, and introduced beef cattle in the 1970s. His marriage lasted 10 years. He employed a housekeeper, who became his partner; and he started buying her dresses. 'It was always a new frock every time we went out,' she remembered. He drove Daimlers, kept peacocks, grew beds of massed roses; life further opened up when he got involved with the Miss New Zealand beauty pageants, and began collecting garments. Hore was also a drunk. 'Once he was found under a bridge.' He tried drying out at Hanmer. He opened a showroom for his garments as a visitor attraction and it was a smash hit in the 1970s and 80s but 'started to be seen as a bit of a joke' by the 90s. 'Continuing to smoke until his death, Eden spent his last three months in the Chalet Home for the Aged in Ranfurly and died in Ranfurly in 1997.'
Jo and David Dunlap, Only a Territorian Would Drape a Goanna, late 1970s. Hand-painted leather, EH176. Photographed at Lake Dunstan, 2024.
Model: Alannah Kwant
The book notes that his last TV interview was in 1996, with Jude Dobson, for her programme Town & Country, in 1996: 'For much of the interview he sits in a rattan peacock chair … Dobson, herself a former model and beauty queen, steps joyfully out onto the sunny lawn in an array of garments.' I texted Jude, my best friend in publishing, and asked her what she remembered. She replied, 'It was such a treat! There in the middle of seemingly nowhere was this South Island farmer with an extraordinary collection of amazing clothes in all these sheds – some weird, some wonderful, all out of the ordinary! He chose a handful for me to try on. In those days they slipped on easily 🤪 and I'd look for the nod of approval that he thought it looked as it should when I stepped out of the changing room. I found him remarkable. His fascination and knowledge of fabric and design seemed incongruous with his 'day job'. Worth the trek to meet him!'
Rosalie Gwilliam, Web of Intrigue, 1977. Wool jersey, Lurex thread and beads, EH207. Photographed at Mitchell's Cottage, Fruitlands, 2024. Model: Ngahuia Williams
No genre of photography is as pompous as fashion photography, although architectural photography runs it a close second. There are some LOL shoots in Central Otago Couture, none funnier than the image above, its faux gothic vibe suggesting a model on her way to a hanging –possibly her own.
Vinka Lucas (Maree de Maru) halter neck dress and cape, early 1970s. Printed rayon velvet and ostrich feathers, EH66. Photographed at Blue Lake, St Bathans, 2019. Model: Hannah Clarke
There are two other contenders for best coffee table book of the year. Tony Fomison: Life of the Artist by Mark Forman is a brilliant work of scholarship but the Fomison estate refused permission for the artist's paintings to be reproduced, which rather compromises the book; and Fire & Ice: Secrets, histories, treasures and mysteries of Tongariro National Park by Hazel Phillips is first-rate natural history writing, with lots of great archival photos, but you can have too much of a Turnbull Library experience – all those dusty old black and whites with dark borders. In Central Otago Couture, neither author writes artful prose, but Derek Henderson's photos sing, in a stunning display of double-page spreads and single-page portrait. The light is gorgeous. The clothes are pop art. You turn the pages in a trance, you allow colour and texture to work their magic, and you stand in awe of the collection of a farmer who drank and smoke like 40 bastards but had that rare thing, that unteachable quality: taste.
Central Otago Couture: The Eden Hore Collection, text by Jane Malthus and Claire Regnault, with photographs by Derek Henderson (Te Papa Press, $70) is available in bookstores nationwide.