Mollie Rodie

Marion (Mollie) Florence Mackenzie (née Rodie) (1919–2020)

Mollie Rodie was born in Invercargill on 25 October 1919. All her schooling years were at Samuel Marsden Collegiate School in Wellington. Having shown talent for drawing, she went on to study at Wellington Technical College when she was 16. In 1936, she sailed with her mother to Britain for a year. She attended Heatherley’s School of Art in London where she took classes specialising in black and white illustration.

This portrait of Mollie was taken by Wellington photographer S.P. Andrew after she returned from London. The white gorgette dress with black lace trim was made for a Government House ball, and features a full-circle skirt.

Back in New Zealand Mollie worked for Fashions Limited in Wellington which produced the popular Fashionbilt label. She learnt invaluable skills about materials and how they hung, fastenings, and pattern drafting – all of which she applied throughout her career.

Mollie was versatile and reliable. She could both write copy and illustrate – these skills attracted the attention of the Evening Post where she began contributing to the women’s page; work that later expanded to the Auckland Weekly News. She had a long and successful career in writing popular fashion columns and features for several newspapers and magazines published in New Zealand.

During the Second World War (1939-45), Mollie harnessed her fashion knowledge for the greater good. She provided advice on revamping clothes and upcycling scraps of fabric, and became a creative force in fundraising pageants and carnivals on the suggestion of her mother who was involved behind the scenes.

Mollie married Hal Dillon Scobie Mackenzie at St Paul’s Cathedral, Wellington, on 15 August 1942. He left afterwards to serve in Italy during the war, returning to New Zealand in early 1946. The couple moved to Central Otago where Hal ran the historic Kyeburn sheep station, and Mollie continued a busy freelance career in fashion. They later moved to a low country farm near Timaru, where Mollie began illustrating fashion advertising (press and catalogues) for the Christchurch department store, Ballantynes.

In the 1960s and 70s, Mollie amassed a significant collection of New Zealand-made clothing mainly from the 20th century. Her aim was to collect everyday clothing and to show some of the key developments in textiles and dress development. The collection of nearly 4,000 garments and accessories is now held by Canterbury Museum. She later presented a small collection of Victorian clothing to the Ferrymead Heritage Park, also in Christchurch.

Mollie and Hal moved back to Central Otago for a time. They began spending winters in Australia, moving permanently to Burleigh Heads, Queensland, in the mid-1980s, where Mollie spent the rest of her well-lived life.