*Pre-sale only: Published March 2025*
A FASCINATING RECORD OF HIGH-END NEW ZEALAND FASHION AND AN
ENIGMATIC COLLECTOR.
In 1975, a makeshift museum opened on a farm in the tussocked hills of the Māniototo
region of Central Otago. The main feature of this new attraction was the more than 220
high-end fashion garments on display. It has been called one of the most significant
collections of its kind in Australasia. And it was housed in an old tractor shed.
It had been amassed by J Eden Hore, a successful but quietly spoken high-country
farmer – a man of many contrasts. He embodied and boldly defied the stereotype of
the ‘Southern Man’, confidently forging his own idiosyncratic path through life.
Central Otago Couture tells the compelling story of his string of eccentric and
memorable obsessions, from Miss New Zealand shows to a menagerie of animals, at
the centre of which was his collection of over 270 high-fashion garments.
The collection’s continued existence, acquired by the Central Otago District Council,
honours and recognises the skills of New Zealand creatives and designers of the
1970s and 1980s at their very best, and represents a unique slice of couture fashion
not found anywhere else in the country.
To this end, acclaimed fashion photographer Derek Henderson has captured these
extraordinary garments in the empty majesty of the Central Otago landscapes that
Eden Hore so loved, bringing these stories to life for a new generation.
CATEGORY: NON-FICTION, HISTORY,
ART
ISBN: 978-1-99-107205-4
THEMA: AFP, AGC, AKX, WCN, 1MBN
BISAC: PHO009000, PHO023040,
PHO011000, HIS004000, DES013000
PUBLISHER: Te Papa Press
PUBLISHED: March 2025
PAGE EXTENT: 336 pages
FORMAT: Hardback,
cloth with french-fold jacket
SIZE: 280 x 190 mm
RIGHTS: World
AUTHORS LIVE IN: Dunedin (JM),
Wellington (CR) and Sydney (DH)