Design sketch, lotus flower as used in Egyptian design

Mollie Rodie was born in Invercargill on 25 October 1919. All her schooling years were at Samuel Marsden Collegiate School in Wellington. She showed an aptitude for writing and drawing from a young age and went to study art at Wellington Technical College in 1935 when she was 16. In 1936, when 17 years old, Mollie 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 for fashion drawing.

When she returned to New Zealand, Mollie worked for Fashions Limited in Courtenay Place, Wellington, which produced the popular Fashionbilt label (it was one of the largest dressmaking firms in New Zealand). She learnt invaluable skills about materials and how they hung, fastenings, and pattern drafting – all of which she applied throughout her career. She also worked for a short time at Screens Advertising Limited in Lambton Quay, learning the job of producing advertisements for cinemas in the 1930s.

Mollie was versatile and reliable. She could write copy and illustrate – these skills attracted the attention of Mrs M.H. Chatfield, the Lady Editor of the Evening Post (until 1939). Mrs Chatfield gave Mollie the opportunity to work freelance for the women’s page in the newspaper.

During the Second World War (1939-45) Mollie wrote columns on upcycling and making-do. She eventually had a long and successful career in writing popular fashion columns and features for several newspapers and magazines, including the New Zealand Herald and the New Zealand Weekly News.

During the war, 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 queen carnivals. While working full-time, she volunteered to design the participants’ costumes for events between 1939 and 1941, including the huge Victory Queen Carnival in Wellington in 1941. Te Papa holds her design sketches from some of these events.

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.

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 life, living to 100 years of age.