Central Otago Couture: The Eden Hore Collection
A fascinating record of high-end New Zealand fashion and an enigmatic collector.
By Jane Malthus and Claire Regnault, photographs by Derek Henderson
Publication: March 2025
Pages: 336
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-99-107205-4
RRP: $70
In 1975, a makeshift museum opened on a farm in the tussocked hills of the Māniototo region of Central Otago. The main feature of this new attraction was the more than 220 high-end fashion garments on display. It has been called one of the most significant collections of its kind in Australasia. And it was housed in an old tractor shed.
It had been amassed by J Eden Hore, a successful but quietly spoken high-country farmer – a man of many contrasts. He embodied and boldly defied the stereotype of the ‘Southern Man’, confidently forging his own idiosyncratic path through life.
Central Otago Couture tells the compelling story of his string of eccentric and memorable obsessions, from Miss New Zealand shows to a menagerie of animals, at the centre of which was his collection of over 270 high-fashion garments.
The collection’s continued existence, acquired by the Central Otago District Council, honours and recognises the skills of New Zealand creatives and designers of the 1970s and 1980s at their very best, and represents a unique slice of couture fashion not found anywhere else in the country.
To this end, acclaimed fashion photographer Derek Henderson has captured these extraordinary garments in the empty majesty of the Central Otago landscapes that Eden Hore so loved, bringing these stories to life for a new generation.
About the authors and photgrapher
Jane Malthus is a dress historian and honorary curator for the dress collection at Tūhura Otago Museum, and has an academic background in textiles, clothing and fashion, history, and fine arts. Her research explores historical, social, and cultural intersections and implications of dress and textiles used by nineteenth- and twentieth-century New Zealanders. Involved with Eden Hore’s collection since the 1980s, she is a current patron and steering group member for Eden Hore Central Otago and a founding member of Costume & Textiles Aotearoa New Zealand.
Claire Regnault is Senior Curator New Zealand Histories & Cultures at Te Papa. She is particularly interested in New Zealand’s dress histories, and associated industries including fashion photography, textile design, retail and promotion. She is the author of Dressed: Fashionable Dress in Aotearoa New Zealand from 1840 to 1910 (2021), winner of the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction; New Zealand Gown of the Year (2003); and co-author of The Dress Circle: New Zealand Fashion Design Since 1940 (2010). She is the President of Costume & Textiles Aotearoa New Zealand, and a member of the Eden Hore Central Otago steering committee.
Derek Henderson is one of New Zealand’s most prolific photographers, with a wide-ranging portfolio that spans various genres; from architecture, fashion, interiors, landscape, and portraiture. Derek has exhibited at fine art galleries throughout Australasia, with some of his photographs in permanent collections, namely the National Gallery of Victoria, Christchurch City Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū and the Arts House Trust art Collection.
