Dress worn by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in Paris

An Expo offers a wonderful opportunity to exhibit the exciting and diverse range of goods and services a country produces. The 1992 Expo at Seville was no exception, although the products New Zealand displayed were not necessarily the traditional meat, bulk dairy products and wool, but also newer added-value exports like ceramics, software and wine.
 
At Seville, New Zealand wanted to show the world it was a sophisticated, cosmopolitan and cultured country with a variety of highly developed secondary and tertiary industries.  At the same time it projected itself as a clean, green, unspoilt South Pacific nation with a culture that reflected both its European-style sophistication as well as its unspoilt Pacific beauty and Polynesian heritage. 

Given this focus, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa was an obvious choice to perform at Seville.  An internationally famous soprano, Kiri, as most New Zealanders refer to her, sang at the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer and has appeared in most of the major opera houses of the world. Kiri’s beautiful operatic voice exudes high culture and sophistication, yet at the same time, she is well known as a New Zealander, and is extremely proud of her Māori heritage. Who better to sum up the qualities of New Zealand than a world class performer equally at home singing an aria from Mozart’s Don Giovanni or a waiata like Pōkarekare ana?

Kiri appeared in the film screened in the New Zealand Pavilion at Seville, singing Landfall in Unknown Seas, an adaptation of Allen Curnow’s poem by composer Wayne Laird. Kiri also appeared as a soloist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra when they performed at the Seville Expo, to great acclaim.  

This concert dress (image not available), designed by famous French designer Pierre Cardin, was worn in Paris in 1981 by Dame Kiri and is one of the many beautiful creations Kiri Te Kanawa has worn while performing. Made of black velvet, it is full-length and close fitting with an asymmetrical bodice. It has a pleated black nylon frilled trim the entire length of the left side.  

French designer Cardin is one of the most famous fashion designers in the world, known not only for his elegant creations for women, but for his men’s fashions as well. Trained as a tailor, Cardin has designed costumes for theatre and film, including French director Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast. Cardin was employed by the top Parisian fashion house Christian Dior from 1947–1950 then left to form his own fashion house. 

In 1959 Cardin produced his own ready-to-wear collection which shocked the Paris fashion establishment, who, up till then, believed that specially made garments were the only real form of haute couture (high fashion).  However, Cardin wanted to create garments that everyone could wear, not just an elite few.  Cardin’s bold move was soon copied by many fashion houses.

One of the features of Cardin’s career has been his ability to keep up with the changing fashions, and yet at the same time retain his distinctive style. Cardin has exploited his good name by licensing it to manufacturers of other products including bed linen, watches, hotels, foodstuffs and many others.       

While the world of fashion is still centred on Paris and Milan, many young New Zealand designers are starting to make their mark internationally, often with designs based on Pacific styles and motifs.

Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (1998).