At Napier’s 2019 Art Deco Festival, I was thrilled to be part of the Art Deco Trust’s first Fashion on the Foreshore event. It was a fantastic opportunity to present ‘Til Death Us Do Part, a collection of beautiful vintage wedding dresses from New Zealand’s fashion past.
I’ve been collecting vintage clothing, including wedding gowns, for over 25 years as I love quality fabrics and well-tailored garments, as well as treasure hunting, which second hand shopping provides in abundance. You never know what you’re going to find when you dive head first into a perfectly ramshackle rack of lovely old garments!
On one of my adventures, I discovered a shipping container full of vintage wedding dresses that ended up forming part of an exhibition at historic house, Highwic, in Auckland in 2017. Renowned dress and textile historian Angela Lassig researched the history of the collection for the exhibition and discovered that many of the wedding dresses were created by Kathleen Fuller - a forgotten designer from New Zealand’s fashion past. Most of the wedding dresses that were part of the Fashion on the Foreshore show were created by this important female fashion trailblazer and I would like to acknowledge Angela’s incredibly detailed research on Kathleen’s background and her design techniques that I used as the basis for much of this article.
I’ve been collecting vintage clothing, including wedding gowns, for over 25 years as I love quality fabrics and well-tailored garments, as well as treasure hunting, which second hand shopping provides in abundance. You never know what you’re going to find when you dive head first into a perfectly ramshackle rack of lovely old garments!
On one of my adventures, I discovered a shipping container full of vintage wedding dresses that ended up forming part of an exhibition at historic house, Highwic, in Auckland in 2017. Renowned dress and textile historian Angela Lassig researched the history of the collection for the exhibition and discovered that many of the wedding dresses were created by Kathleen Fuller - a forgotten designer from New Zealand’s fashion past. Most of the wedding dresses that were part of the Fashion on the Foreshore show were created by this important female fashion trailblazer and I would like to acknowledge Angela’s incredibly detailed research on Kathleen’s background and her design techniques that I used as the basis for much of this article.
Kathleen Fuller started as a fashion designer in Christchurch in the early 1920s. Prior to establishing her ‘Minerva Salon’ she had worked in Auckland at John Court Ltd, which promoted itself as ‘Auckland’s Leading Drapers.’ In her first printed advertisement Kathleen referred to herself as a ‘designer’. This was really rather significant at a time when those involved in the making of fashion were described as ‘Dressmakers’ and ‘Costumiers’ in the New Zealand’s urban and rural trade Directories – the early equivalent of today’s telephone books. There were no listings under the term ‘designer’ or ‘fashion designer’ in the New Zealand Directories until the 1950s. Kathleen was a true innovator with bold business sense.
Around 1930 Kathleen moved her business to Wellington where she designed and made ‘high class’ garments under a label bearing her own name. It appears that she didn’t open a salon in Wellington, which suggests that her clothes were wholesaled to frock salons or department stores.
Aside from promoting her clothing ranges and stores in print advertisements, Kathleen also presented her garments publicly in the form of mannequin parades, sometimes in association with another event. One of the most prominent of these was the ‘Mannequin Parade’ that Fuller presented to raise funds as part of the Victory Queen Carnival. What an honour it was to be carrying on Kathleen’s legacy and presenting her gowns publicly once again at the Art Deco Festival, over 80 years after she first created them.
Around 1930 Kathleen moved her business to Wellington where she designed and made ‘high class’ garments under a label bearing her own name. It appears that she didn’t open a salon in Wellington, which suggests that her clothes were wholesaled to frock salons or department stores.
Aside from promoting her clothing ranges and stores in print advertisements, Kathleen also presented her garments publicly in the form of mannequin parades, sometimes in association with another event. One of the most prominent of these was the ‘Mannequin Parade’ that Fuller presented to raise funds as part of the Victory Queen Carnival. What an honour it was to be carrying on Kathleen’s legacy and presenting her gowns publicly once again at the Art Deco Festival, over 80 years after she first created them.
When I was thinking about styling the dresses for the show, I wanted to create deco inspired veils to complete the look. At the exhibition at Highwic I created very contemporary “Love is Blind” headpieces but a blindfold wasn’t going to work on the catwalk!
Instead, I used the tulle from the exhibition headpieces and combined this with a range of vintage costume jewellery that I’ve collected over the years to create a 1930s style veil which could go onto the heads of my models easily as there was a quick change for them between collections. I finished the look off with a single dried hydrangea bound with a raw cream silk bow. I loved being able to weave a little of my own work into the story of the dresses before presenting them to a brand new audience.
The first set of gowns that took to the catwalk in Napier were all by Kathleen Fuller and created from a selection of lace fabrics.
Instead, I used the tulle from the exhibition headpieces and combined this with a range of vintage costume jewellery that I’ve collected over the years to create a 1930s style veil which could go onto the heads of my models easily as there was a quick change for them between collections. I finished the look off with a single dried hydrangea bound with a raw cream silk bow. I loved being able to weave a little of my own work into the story of the dresses before presenting them to a brand new audience.
The first set of gowns that took to the catwalk in Napier were all by Kathleen Fuller and created from a selection of lace fabrics.
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Vianca wore a cotton net wedding dress from the 1930s, designed by Kathleen Fuller in Wellington. The front of this exquisite gown features a rectangular panel of delicate machine-made cotton net with a ‘hail spot’ pattern interspersed with embroidered bows. The peplum at the back waist sits over a gathered full skirt that extends to form a magnificent fishtail train formed from six tiers of embroidered ‘hail spot’ net, each tier trimmed with a narrow row of cotton lace. The finishing details of this dress are equally
lovely, such as the the 23 exquisite rouleau loops for the lace covered buttons down the centre back. 
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