This collection, launched to honour 10 years of NZ Fashion Week, celebrates Kiwi fashion on screen. From TV showpieces (B&H, Corbans) to docos on designers; Gloss to archive gold, from Swannies to Split Enz, taniko to foot fetish ... take a stroll down the catwalk of our sartorial screen past. Beauties include ex-Miss Universe Lorraine Downes and a teenage Rachel Hunter.

“As an Oscar is to actors, a Benson & Hedges Fashion Design Award was to aspiring New Zealand fashion designers.” The B&H Awards were the big fashion event of the year for three decades from 1964. This 1978 telecast is presented from Wellington’s Town Hall by John Hayden, and longtime B&H organiser Josephine Brody. The theme is ‘fantasy’, but the fabric du jour is wool — befitting an economy living off the sheep’s back — with design entries coming in from Kaitoke to Marton and a procession of homespuns and knitwear paraded before the visiting Parisian judge.

The Benson & Hedges Fashion Design Awards were the big fashion event of the year from the mid 60s to the 90s. The Wellington show was organised by model agent Maysie Bestall-Cohen from 1982, and from 1984 TVNZ broadcast the 'B&H' live from the Michael Fowler Centre. Bestall-Cohen and Bob Parker host this 1986 GOFTA award-winner. Former Miss Universe Lorraine Downes is a guest presenter, and the line-up of models includes a teenage Rachel Hunter and future TV presenter Hilary Timmins. Padded shoulders, geometric prints and garish colours date stamp the era.    

Corbans Fashion Collections was a live event and TV special staged annually in the 1990s, where local fashion houses showcased their upcoming collections. The producer of the live show was Pieter Stewart, who went on to launch NZ Fashion Week. In this 1994 show, Shortland Street stars pock the front row, Alison Mau, Paula Ryan and designers opine on the dress code, grunge doesn’t appear to have impacted on the à la mode pastel styles (Zambesi and NOM*D are typically dark in contrast), and NZ On Screen editor Paul Ward channels Zoolander as a teenage male model.

Corbans Fashion Collections was a live event and TV special staged annually in the 1990s, where local fashion houses showcased their upcoming collections. The producer of both the live shows and the TV programmes was Pieter Stewart, who went on to launch NZ Fashion Week. This 1995 show is narrated by Craig Parker and Alison Mau; Fashion Quarterly editor of the time, Paula Ryan, gives style tips; and Geeling Ng and Hinemoa Elder feature as celebrity models stepping out for Francis Hooper and Denise L'Estrange-Corbet's World label.

In November 1970 a New Zealand tourism fashion presentation designed for Australian audiences took place at Auckland Museum. Dancing models wore traditional Māori motifs, combined with contemporary fashion — then still a novelty. The designs include work by Kowhai Knitwear's Janice Hopper and Ann Rupe (who is heard on the soundtrack). Rupe had won the Coat and Suit section at the New Zealand Fashion Showcase '69, aged 20. The Taniko motifs were painstakingly beaded or individually painted on to the garments, rather than screen-printed.

Corbans Fashion Collections was a live event and TV special staged annually in the 1990s, where local fashion houses showcased their upcoming collections. The producer of both the live shows and the TV programmes was Pieter Stewart, who went on to launch NZ Fashion Week. The first special screened in 1990, and the last in 1997 (the 96 and 97 shows changed names to Wella Fashion Collections as a new sponsor came on board). In 1998/99 the show morphed into the Wella Fashion Report, four seasonal specials screening in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

Designer Garnet Nelson has a distinctive attitude to fashion for the rural sector, showcased in a range of clothes combining style and practicality — although the after five combinations may be a step too far. This might be one of the celebrated Country Calendar spoof episodes, but the buy-in from models who could only be farmers and not actors is a sight to behold. And the fashion tips don't end there. Reporter (and long time Country Calendar producer) Frank Torley adds his own sartorial note with an unfeasibly long shirt collar that has a mind of its own.

The Benson & Hedges Fashion Design Awards were the big fashion event of the year from the mid 60s through to the 90s. The show was organised by Josephine Brody, with a TV version screening later. Model turned agent Maysie Bestall-Cohen organised the ‘B&H’ from 1982. An early 80s screen hiatus ended with TVNZ screening a live-to-air show from 1984 to 1998 — the Michael Fowler Centre event was one of its biggest outside broadcasts. In the later 90s the show was known as the Smokefree Fashion Design Awards (after tobacco company sponsorships were outlawed).

NZ On Screen’s Dunedin Collection offers up the sights and sounds of a city edged by ocean, and famed for its music. Dunedin is a bracing mixture of old and new: of Victorian buildings and waves of fresh-faced students, many of them carrying guitars. As Dave Cull reflects in his introduction, it is a city where distance is no barrier to creativity and innovation.